Since Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s fiery crash with another sanctioning body just over a week ago, NASCAR teams and competitors have been looking at fire safety within NASCAR’s top series. Obviously, the situation at Sonoma, Calif., had nothing to do with America’s premier stock car racing organization but did the accident raise awareness in the NASCAR garages?
HERE IS WHAT SOME COMPETITORS HAD TO SAY:
JEFF GREEN, Driver #43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge:
“As a driver, yeah, fire is just something that is always a concern. You do all you can to prevent yourself from getting hurt, but fire is very unpredictable. A fire in a car isn’t the same as having an accident. If you’re wrecking you usually have a pretty good idea where you are getting hit, or where the next hit is going to come from. That’s not the case for a fire. You never know where it is or where it is going to spread.
“We are in a situation right now where NASCAR is doing everything they can to keep us safe. As a part of that we are looking at bigger seats, the head-and-neck restraint systems, and other things that involve a lot of hooks and pins. They are all a part of keeping us safe, but it takes some extra time to get out of the car. It’s just part of the deal, but I think we’re doing the best we can.”
DERRIKE COPE, Driver, #49 Advil Ford:
“There are two things that all drivers are very conscious of – head injury and fire. Those have to be the quickest things that can happen to you while you are in the car. You just can’t prepare for anything like that. You really don’t want to have a fire. My father was burned in a drag car and had to have skin graphs. It’s not something that you want to go through.
“I think right now NASCAR has their hands tied as far as going any further than they have gone. They have done everything they can do to keep us safe as far as fire is concerned. You can’t just come up with a better system without having another reaction. For every action there is reaction that might possibly hurt safety from another aspect. I think that’s where we are. We can’t improve anything right now without a real possibility of hurting something somewhere else. We need to protect ourselves from accidents too, and we’ve made a lot of steps to move forward along those lines. We can’t move backwards just to accommodate a possible fire. I think we’ve got the best system in place right now, and I commend NASCAR for what they have done.”
TINA GORDON, Driver #39 Yahoo! Ford:
“I’ve been very fortunate where I’ve never been in the situation of having a fire in my car. I really don’t know what that’s like, and I don’t want to find out. It’s a fear of every competitor because it’s a situation where you have to escape quickly. It’s hard to do that with us being buckled into the cars.
“The future will lead us to better safety in cars, and not just from a fire standpoint, but overall too. Technology is going to lead to better ideas. At this point I think we’ve doing everything that we can. Anytime new products are introduced you have to take a hard look at them and ask if that is something that can improve safety. I think we’ve stayed on top of that with improvements with fire materials. As we move forward I think we’ll continue to see more improvements.”
KEN SCHRADER, Driver, #49 Schwan’s Home Service Dodge:
“Fire is definitely a scary deal. It's something you don't experience often, thank goodness, and you can't really prepare for how you handle it. Luckily we have all of these safeguards in place to protect drivers from fire. From the firesuits to the gloves to the neckware, and helmet, the drivers and teams do all they can to protect the driver and crew. NASCAR mandates certain safeguards as well; in the design of the fuel cells and the cockpit, plus last year freezing the field when the caution flies allows emergency crews to get to your car a lot faster. Over the course of your career you're going to be involved in a number of accidents and wrecks, so you kind of get used to what to do. But, thankfully you don't experience that much fire. When you do, you're thinking one thing, 'I've got to get out here', and you do it as fast as you can.”
JAY ROBINSON, Owner, #39 Yahoo! Ford (Tina Gordon); #49 Advil Ford (Derrike Cope):
“I can't say it's a great fear as a crew chief because fire's are so rare, and the reason they're so rare is because of the fire safety mechanisms in the car are so well thought out and they work... they work really well. For that reason fire isn't something you normally have to worry about in our business – you have already done your worrying in the work that has gone into the race car. So, when fire does occur, I'm confident in the safe guards that are in place."
