When Adam Petty’s racecar slammed at 150 m.p.h. into a concrete wall last May, a safety harness and seatbelt secured his body tightly. What instantaneously doomed the 19-year-old grandson of legendary driver Richard Petty was that his head was restrained inadequately.
As the car came to its horrifically sudden stop, laws of physics kept Petty’s head hurtling in the direction of impact–laterally to the right and slightly forward. The only tethers holding his head to his body were his neck muscles and spinal column, which came under enormous stress. His head hyperextended so violently that he sustained what trauma specialists call basal skull fracture–actually a set of injuries in which the fragile bottom of the rear of the skull cracks from stress, often cutting arteries and causing rapid blood loss, and destroying nerve cells that control life functions such as breathing and heart rate.
Then and there, continuation of NASCAR’s most famous driving dynasty “just evaporated,” says Richard Petty.
The details of Petty’s death open an even deeper, vaster tragedy found during a sixth-month Tribune study. Basal skull fracture and similar injuries caused by violent head movement have been the most common cause of death among race drivers over the past 10 years–the same time span in which a device, scientifically proven to prevent just such injuries, has been available.
Adam Petty could be alive today. So could Kenny Irwin, another rising NASCAR star who died of nearly identical injuries only eight weeks later. So could five of the other six NASCAR drivers killed during the past decade. And so–all told–could at least 12 of the last 15 drivers killed in major auto racing worldwide since 1991, if only . . .
If only auto racing had moved faster, more intensively, to develop and refine the head-restraint device that was invented nearly 20 years ago, and other safety innovations that remain stuck on the drawing board because of inadequate funding for research and development. This in a sport through which billions of dollars flow annually toward winning and promotion of sponsors’ products.
Indeed, if only two of the breakthroughs–the head-restraint device and “soft wall” technology that greatly would lessen the impact energy of cars hitting concrete–had been in place, the past decade might have brought an end to the dying that has been the dark delineator of auto racing from other sports since the first driver fatality in 1898.
“We’d be much further ahead if we had been concerting high-quality research, with consistent funding, over the last 30 years,” says John Melvin, a Detroit-based biomechanical engineer and a leading authority on racing injuries.
“Look at all the money being spent on winning alone,” says Melvin, who believes that “even a tiny fraction of that” could fund exponential leaps in safety.
Is financial profit–which would be reduced slightly by safety innovations at tracks–more important to the heads of racing than driver safety?
“Always,” CART driver Michael Andretti says. “Always.”
Other findings of the Tribune study included:
A traditional, macho acceptance of death as an occupational hazard of racing.
“I know the risk. I take all the responsibility,” Richard Petty often told his wife during his 35-year racing career. “If I get killed, and you ever sue anybody over it, I will haunt you.”
Today, the man called The King of NASCAR resigns himself to his grandson’s death as “meant to be.”
A poor record by track owners, racing teams and organizations of supporting the development of the safety measures that could have saved the lives of young Petty and others. Only now is the HANS (head and neck support system) being put to use. “Soft walls” have undergone only minimal testing under race conditions.
Most major racing organizations have heeded the grim message fatalities in their series have delivered and have taken steps in the 1990s to improve safety conditions for their drivers. But America’s wealthiest and most popular motor sport, NASCAR, has become the international focal point of continuing tragedy. While three drivers died in NASCAR racing accidents in 2000–Petty in the Busch series, Irwin in Winston Cup and Tony Roper in Craftsman Trucks–there were no fatalities last year in the two major categories of racing historically considered the most dangerous: Formula One or “Grand Prix” cars, and Indianapolis-type cars of the Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) series and the Indy Racing League (IRL).
More NASCAR drivers (eight) have died of racing crashes in the past 10 years than in Formula One and Indy-car racing combined.
In the forefront
CART, the IRL and Formula One have been proactive in safety research and development, in conjunction with manufacturers such as General Motors, Ford Motor Co., DaimlerChrysler and independent racing safety experts. Those organizations have specialized, traveling medical units.
Beginning this season, Formula One will require its drivers to wear the HANS in all races and CART will require the HANS in its oval-track events. The IRL has been the leader in funding for developing “soft wall” technology. CART this season is beginning a revolutionary study to determine precisely what happens to a driver’s brain during a wreck.
NASCAR, in contrast, has no traveling medical unit. It relies on local doctors to staff trackside medical facilities. International Speedway Corp., which the France family of Daytona Beach that also owns NASCAR outright controls, operates 13 tracks on this year’s Winston Cup tour. It refuses to divulge the credentials, or even the names, of doctors and emergency workers.
And while NASCAR maintains it has also been active in safety research and development, NASCAR officials remain secretive about safety research and refuse to give details.
Last week, NASCAR President Mike Helton said the organization’s expenditures on safety research and development this year will reach “seven figures,” but added: “I am just not prepared to, or desire to, sit here today and tell you exactly what is going on.”
NASCAR does not require its drivers to wear the HANS, even though medical examiners attributed all three driver fatalities last year to injuries associated with violent head movement.
Why not?
“Because we are not through the understanding process,” Helton said. “The ergonomics inside these stock cars are different”–that is, more spacious, with more room for head and body movement than in the much snugger cockpits of F1 and Indy cars.
“[Also,] we have made different efforts of wall testing, and different mechanical pieces of cars . . . and without making details, I don’t feel like it’s proper to say much further,” Helton said, maintaining NASCAR conducts much of its testing “off-track” at scientific facilities “all over the country.”
The only NASCAR-initiated safety research project that came to public light last year was at New Hampshire International Speedway, after both Petty (May 12) and Irwin (July 7) had been killed at that 1-mile oval track, both in the third turn. NASCAR announced after the fact that it had tested some sort of “soft walls” but didn’t reveal details. The tests, sources say, involved driverless old cars with their throttles tied down, crashed into Styrofoam blocks placed against the concrete walls at New Hampshire. NASCAR thus far has announced no changes in wall requirements stemming from the tests.
Neither has NASCAR divulged the findings of its investigation of the two fatal crashes at the Loudon, N.H., track. Loudon Police Chief Robert Fiske criticized NASCAR for removing evidence from the track before police arrived.
The cars were removed almost immediately and either were buried (Petty’s) or destroyed (Irwin’s) out of respect for the deceased. Police weren’t on the scene at all after Petty’s crash.
They made it to the Irwin crash two hours afterward, but practice already had resumed. Fiske said he “couldn’t possibly pinpoint whose [skid marks] were whose,” and that the walls already had been repainted when he arrived. Fisk said he could have determined the exact speed, the angle, the route the car traveled and other details of the accident as his department does in every “untimely death” in his jurisdiction.
Steve Olvey, a University of Miami specialist in neurosurgical intensive care, is medical director of CART, and was medical director of Homestead-Miami Speedway, where NASCAR races are run.
“In talking with [NASCAR] and working what little I’ve worked with them,” Olvey says, “you get the impression they’re just really not interested in the safety issues.”
Who’s safety’s No. 1?
“Safety is No. 1 on our list,” says Gary Nelson, NASCAR’s chief technical officer. “It has always been No. 1 on our list. Our record proves it is No. 1 on our list.”
Spectator safety has appeared to be a priority for NASCAR. In 1987, after a car almost flew into the grandstands at Talladega [Ala.] Superspeedway, NASCAR mandated carburetor restrictor plates for Talladega and the next-fastest track, Daytona International Speedway, to keep speeds less than 200 m.p.h. and to keep cars from going airborne during accidents. Then in the early ’90s, NASCAR developed and mandated roof flaps, which open as a car spins to help keep it on the ground.
After flying debris killed three spectators at a CART race in 1998 and three more died at an IRL race in 1999, NASCAR–even though it had had no spectator deaths at its races–mandated tethering cables to keep wheels and hoods anchored to cars during crashes.
But as for driver safety, as early as 1985, the International Council of Motorsports Sciences tried to establish a universal data base on trauma and fatalities among racing organizations, with the aim of scientific approaches to prevention.
“As good as the idea sounds, it never got going,” says Olvey, one of the organizations founders.
“Some of the sanctioning bodies” didn’t want to provide their data, Olvey says.
Was NASCAR one?
“They were the primary ones,” Olvey says.
“We are no less interested in safety than anybody else,” Helton counters.
“We understand the price,” he says, refusing to give specifics. “There is speculation: `Why are they not doing it? Why won’t they tell us about it?’ It’s such a complicated process to be certain what you are working on is well-represented. If you go out and publicize what you are doing, people may become uncertain or unclear.”
Formula One, though, is open with its safety research, believing “it’s our obligation to make sure drivers are given maximum safety,” F1 team owner Eddie Jordan says. “It’s not just lip service.”
In F1, Sid Watkins, chief of neurology at City of London hospital, heads a medical team that travels worldwide to Grand Prix races. CART has eight physicians on the medical team Olvey and his chief orthopedic consultant, Terry Trammell of Indianapolis, head. They work in a $1.5 million mobile surgical and intensive care unit.
“[It’s] 850 square feet, and like a regular emergency room or intensive care unit,” Olvey says. “We’re able to do what we need to do.”
Their budget is more than $1 million a year. They amount to the personal physicians for CART drivers; for example, they know every injury and every allergy Michael Andretti has suffered. They can and have performed major procedures right in the cockpits at crash scenes.
NASCAR’s version of traveling medical care is that administrative personnel carry medical records of drivers from track to track. Other than that, medical and emergency response are left up to individual tracks.
“We maintain that the smartest, most efficient, best providers of care are those who work on the interstates all week,” Helton says.
Helton also says local medical teams that individual tracks hire have better working relationships with local hospitals.
For more than a decade, various major corporations have offered full funding of specialized traveling medical teams for NASCAR, similar to those in CART and F1. Each offer has been refused because of NASCAR’s fear of liability for medical treatment of drivers, sources say.
Of the other racing series’ acceptance of responsibility versus NASCAR’s refusal of it, NASCAR Chairman Bill France Jr. has said, “They have their legal advisers and we have ours.”
Says Olvey: “In view of the fact that all other major motor sports sanctioning bodies have dedicated, in-house medical and safety teams, it leaves NASCAR as an outlier, by virtue of the fact that they continue to leave matters of safety up to the individual drivers and tracks.”
Olvey recalls conversations with NASCAR drivers that appalled him during his tenure at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
“I can honestly say for a fact that when I would talk to these guys at Homestead, in the Busch series and the truck series, they did not know what I thought were common beliefs regarding safety that our [CART] guys have known for a long time,” he says.
Olvey and other experts cite specific matters such as padding inside the driver compartments, seat placement and attachment to the chassis, and attachment of the safety harnesses to the chassis.
“[Some NASCAR drivers] honestly were not aware of it because no one had ever talked to them about these things,” Olvey says. “They said, `Oh, my God, if I had known that, I would have done this years ago.'”
Driver awareness
Another enormous awakening for NASCAR drivers came last month, beginning with a safety seminar Ford Motor Co. conducted for its drivers during test sessions at Daytona International Speedway.
Most drivers left the meeting shocked by evidence of how much punishment their bodies are exposed to during crashes.
Drivers were told that of the eight NASCAR racing deaths in the past 10 years, the HANS probably would have saved all of them.
“We were all kind of shocked,” driver Jimmy Spencer says. “It bothers you. You don’t want to be the ninth.”
For years, the HANS device was considered too bulky and confining for drivers to wear practically. But NASCAR hasn’t taken an active role in development of the HANS, which has been refined into smaller, more practical versions, thanks to intensification of research by Mercedes-Benz, General Motors and Ford.
Robert Hubbard, professor of biomechanical engineering at Michigan State, invented the HANS nearly 20 years ago. Hubbard got the idea in conversation with his brother-in-law, Atlanta sports car driver Jim Downing, who realized that a lack of head restraint was the culprit in many racing injuries.
The HANS has been available to drivers in all forms of racing since 1991.
“Gary Nelson knew about it before he became the technical guy at NASCAR [beginning in 1991 and ascending to the chief technical role in 1992],” Hubbard says.
Ford and GM engineers privately have been encouraging their NASCAR drivers to wear the HANS since Irwin became the second NASCAR fatality of the season last July 7. Melvin says the HANS “certainly would have helped” Petty and Irwin.
NASCAR maintained for months that it did not forbid use of the HANS and, last week, Helton said officials now “encourage” drivers to wear it. Ford has told its drivers it will pay the $1,275 the HANS costs. So far, 21 Winston Cup drivers have purchased it. But how many actually will use it in the season-opening Daytona 500 on Feb. 18 remains uncertain.
Many NASCAR drivers say the HANS is too confining–that while solving one problem, it might create others, such as limiting their ability to look around, or hindering quick exit from cars in emergencies such as fire. But scientists studying in-car camera videotape say NASCAR drivers may not move their heads as much as they think they do in the course of normal driving.
NASCAR driver Brett Bodine, who began wearing the HANS in July, has found “no negatives about it.”
Hubbard suspects his safety restraint could have been in widespread use “quite a bit faster” with more concerted effort and funding.
“The HANS device isn’t my day job,” says Hubbard, who taught full time in the engineering and medical schools at Michigan State and developed the HANS in his spare time at his own expense. “We’d go for months or years without really doing anything [to further refinement].”
Melvin says CART had only “a sort of background interest in the HANS” until the death of CART rookie Gonzalo Rodriguez at a road course near Monterey, Calif., in September, 1999, followed seven weeks later by the death of rising star Greg Moore at an oval track in Fontana, Calif.
Hitting the wall
“Soft walls,” made of crushable but resilient materials such as polyethylene or high-density Styrofoam, have proved to be life-savers even in experimental forms. Such barriers, which would replace or cover traditional concrete retaining walls, significantly dissipate the enormous energy created by crashes before the horrific shock, or “G-spike,” can reach drivers’ bodies.
The fledgling IRL has been funding the best soft wall currently under development. NASCAR does not provide tangible evidence of being anything other than an observer of the project–the Polyethelene Energy Dissipation System (PEDS)–former GM safety engineer John Pierce is directing.
“That group based in Daytona makes a lot of money,” says Pierce, referring to NASCAR and International Speedway Corp. “I don’t know why they aren’t doing anything. Maybe they are, behind the scenes.”
Helton maintains NASCAR indeed is working behind the scenes–but offers no facts. Connecticut-based highway safety expert John Fitch can’t find funding to make prototypes for his concept of what could be the most practical soft wall yet for oval tracks, where the need is greatest. Called a “compression barrier,” Fitch’s concept would place cushioning devices such as tires against existent concrete walls at intervals, then cover the cushions with a smooth surface that would give at any point of impact, then return to its previous shape.
But the concept remains only a model in the computers and mind of Fitch, who invented those yellow, sand-filled plastic barrels you see in front of bridge abutments on highways nationwide.
It is telling that the most resounding call for improvement has come from NASCAR’s most notoriously macho driver, seven-time Winston Cup champion Dale Earnhardt. He has a terse rebuttal to the long-running excuse of racing executives that soft walls would fragment and require too much cleanup time during races: “I’d rather they spend 20 minutes cleaning up that mess,” says Earnhardt, “than cleaning me off the wall.”
Last year sticking throttles and concrete walls–the two bottom-line causes of the deaths of Petty and Irwin–were the hottest issues in NASCAR. But, unlike CART and F1, NASCAR does not require sophisticated computerized systems that keep throttles from sticking and automatically shut off the engine if the throttle does stick.
After the Petty and Irwin deaths, NASCAR did mandate a “kill switch” within reach of drivers’ thumbs on the steering wheels. Previously, the only way a NASCAR driver could shut off his engine was with a toggle switch located on the dash.
NASCAR said it made the decision on the “kill switch” scientifically. Driver Wally Dallenbach Jr. tells it this way: A former sports-car racer, Dallenbach had brought the steering wheel-mounted kill switch with him into NASCAR from road racing, where it was commonly used for years. NASCAR officials “came and looked at mine” during a test session at Indianapolis last July, says Dallenbach, and “two weeks later they made it mandatory.”
Formula One, CART and IRL analyze each of their serious crashes with scientific data gathered by physicians and biomechanical engineers. This data is applied to safety innovations. With data from crash recorders mounted on all their cars, the other major series have improved the safety structure of their cars substantially, documented the worth of head-restraint devices and soft walls and developed new seats that are better at supporting the body and absorbing energy during crashes.
But NASCAR records no crash data and does no computer modeling, even though “We’ve offered the `blue boxes’ to them for I don’t know how many years,” says a Ford source.
Nelson says he just doesn’t get the importance of the crash recorder.
“It tells you how hard someone has hit the wall, but that’s about all it tells you,” he says.
Safety experts familiar with crash recorders are astounded at that remark.
“Say you have a particular crash in NASCAR, and you have good data,” says CART’s Olvey, hypothesizing what would happen if NASCAR used crash recorders. “Then you do a computer model with that data. Say you adjust the computer model so that you move the seat over to the right four inches.
“Then, you redo the crash in the model. It might show that the driver wouldn’t have had any injuries [had the seat been placed differently]. Or it might show there would have been worse injuries. But at least you have a safe way to try the crashes using different equipment and placement.”
That is precisely the method by which CART determined that Rodriguez’s death of classic basal skull fracture would have been prevented by the HANS, and mandated the device.
Ultra-strong seats, survival capsules that thoroughly support drivers’ bodies in the most violent wrecks, already are in place in all the world’s top racing leagues except NASCAR.
Some NASCAR drivers, led by Jeff Burton, have taken it upon themselves–with enthusiastic backing from Ford, GM and DaimlerChrysler–to organize funding and research on better seats for the Winston Cup series. But Burton reckons that not even prototypes of the new seats will be available until well into the season that is about to start.
Helmets soon may be redesigned–not only for racing, but for public recreational use–at the conclusion of a new project to determine precisely what happens to drivers’ brains during wrecks. Olvey conceived the idea after more than 20 years of observation that no matter how violent the crash, the only pieces of driver apparel that consistently remained in place were the ear pieces by which drivers received radio communications from their pit crews.
Olvey also understood that the ear is an invaluable non-surgical path to direct observation of what happens to the brain during traumatic events such as crashes.
This season, his concept will unfold as a joint project of CART, the U.S. Air Force, Motorola and Racing Radios Inc., the Atlanta-based supplier of communications equipment to most North American racing series.
NASCAR’s position?
“We’ll wait and see how it all comes out,” says Helton. “In the meantime, we have a relationship with Motorola and Racing Radios. Just because we’re not directly involved in it doesn’t mean we don’t know the results of it.”
Doesn’t Helton see any value in active NASCAR participation in the study?
“Not yet,” he says.
As for computerized crash recorders and throttle shutoffs, Helton says NASCAR fears introduction of such devices would lead to abuse of the computers to cheat with such unfair racing advantages as traction control.
But don’t the other organizations, which allow various onboard computers, have to police high-tech cheating as well?
“They’re set up to police it,” says Helton. “We are not.”
What does it take?
Multiple tragedy, involving at least one high-profile driver, historically has been required to get organizations moving on safety.
“The single occurrence, every so often, can sort of fail to get people’s attention,” Melvin says. “But two, close together, can really get everybody’s attention.”
It took the deaths of legendary Formula One driver Ayrton Senna and rookie Roland Ratzenberger on the same weekend in 1994 at Imola, Italy, to spur Grand Prix racing into a full-fledged safety revolution that has left F1 without a driver fatality since.
It took the deaths of Rodriguez and Moore in ’99 to push CART to mandate the HANS.
Now, all of motor racing’s focus is on NASCAR.
“It should be,” retired legendary driver Mario Andretti says grimly, flatly. “It should be.”
“NASCAR has to take the lead [in safety concerns],” says Michael Andretti, Mario’s son. “They’re the ones who are bringing in the big income for the tracks and they’re the ones who can make the call. Until that happens, nothing’s going to happen.”
Ultimately, money will be the impetus rather than the impediment to change, Mario Andretti says.
Racing has become enormously dependent on outside corporate sponsors, who are increasingly demanding cleaner public images. “Sponsors want to celebrate,” Mario Andretti says. “They don’t want to mourn.”
There is no greater evidence than the intensified proactivity of Ford, GM and DaimlerChrysler at Daytona International Speedway, right now, as Speedweek unfolds to open a new season.
John Melvin, after 30 years of laboring in obscurity for racing safety, suddenly has become the scientific guru of the long-fatalistic NASCAR drivers. Melvin and other engineers are convincing the tough old boys their times need not come so soon–that what is meant to be, at this moment in history, is the advent of the HANS, called by racing-savvy physicians and engineers the most important piece of racing safety apparel since the crash helmet.
“To some extent,” Hubbard says, “the revolution has started.”
And so Adam Petty, fourth-generation driver, dead at age 19 with not a single Winston Cup victory to his credit, may yet go down in history as the most important racing Petty of them all.
SAFETY DEVICE COULD HAVE PREVENTED FATAL INJURIES
Since 1991, 15 drivers have been killed in major-league auto racing. At least 12 of them died of injuries caused by precisely what the HANS is designed to prevent-violent head movement-including seven of the eight drivers killed in NASCAR in that time span.
DEVELOPING THE HANS
1970s: NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. draws a sketch on paper of a similar device with straps attached to a helmet.
1980: Atlanta sports car racer Jim Downing asks his brother-in-law, Dr. Robert Hubbard, a biomechanical engineer, to help him develop a better restraint device for drivers.
1987: After testing by General Motors and Wayne State University, Hubbard obtains a patent on his original HANS.
1989: Downing wears the HANS during International Motor Sports Association races.
1991: Hubbard and Downing offer the HANS to drivers in all types of racing, for $600 a unit. But because of its bulkiness, they find only a few takers.
1994-95: Kyle Petty wears the HANS but has to stop using it after a NASCAR rule shrinks the size of side windows, making the device impossible to fit in a race car.
1996: Mercedes-Benz safety engineer Hubert Gramling contacts Hubbard to inquire about the HANS, noticing its enormous potential.
1997: Hubbard and Mercedes-Benz enter a joint agreement to further develop the HANS to make it smaller and more practical for Formula One and Indy cars.
1999: GM safety engineer Tom Gideon and Wayne State expert Dr. John Melvin begin testing Mercedes’ refined version of the HANS on a NASCAR simulation sled. The device does what its developers claim-prevent head and neck injuries.
2000: Three models of the HANS-ranging in price from $875 to $2,000-are offered. Although interest in the device increases among drivers, there is still no consensus. NASCAR driver Brett Bodine advocates the device and begins wearing it in Winston Cup practices and races.
CART votes to make the HANS mandatory for its oval-track races in 2001.
Formula One requires its drivers to use the HANS device in all of its races.
To date, NASCAR still does not require nor recommend the use of the HANS device.
RACING DEATHS SINCE 1991
Aug. 11, 1991: NASCAR driver J.D. McDuffie. Crash site: Watkins Glen, N.Y. Cause of death: Basal skull fracture after hitting a tire barrier and guard rail.
May 15, 1992: USAC driver Jovy Marcello. Crash site: Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Cause of death: Basal skull fracture after hitting wall.
Aug. 13, 1992: NASCAR driver Clifford Allison (son of NASCAR’s Bobby Allison). Crash site: Michigan Speedway. Cause of death: Basal skull fracture after crashing into a concrete wall during practice.
Feb. 11, 1994: NASCAR veteran Neil Bonnett. Crash site: Daytona International Speedway. Cause of death: Head injuries suffered after crashing into a wall during practice. (Previously suffered head-whip injury in 1990).
Feb. 14, 1994: NASCAR driver Rodney Orr. Crash site: Daytona International Speedway. Cause of death: Head trauma after hitting caution-light stand.
April 30, 1994: Rookie Formula One driver Roland Ratzenberger.
Crash site: Imola, Italy. Cause of death: Basal skull fracture suffered after slamming into wall.
May 1, 1994: Formula One superstar Ayrton Senna.
Crash site: Imola, Italy.
Cause of death: Massive head injuries after crashing into wall at almost 200 m.p.h. (Some speculate shrapnel penetrated his helmet.)
May 17, 1996: Scott Brayton, Indy Racing League.
Crash site: Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Cause of death: Basal skull fracture after hitting wall on Turn 2.
July 14, 1996: CART driver Jeff Krosnoff. Crash site: Exhibition Place, Toronto. Cause of death: Head and chest injuries after his car tumbled into a fence.
March 21, 1997: NASCAR Craftsman Truck driver John Nemechek.
Crash site: Homestead-Miami Speedway. Cause of death: Massive head injuries after his head struck a wall March 16.
Sept. 11, 1999: CART rookie Gonzalo Rodriguez.
Crash site: Laguna Seca Raceway near Monterey, Calif. Cause of death: Basal skull fracture after his car smashed into a concrete wall. (A computer re- enactment of the crash showed the HANS would have saved his life.)
Oct. 31, 1999: CART driver Greg Moore. Crash site: California Speedway. Cause of death: Massive head injuries after his car hit a wall and slammed into the ground several times.
May 12, 2000: NASCAR driver Adam Petty.
Crash site: New Hampshire International Speedway.
Cause of death: Basal skull fracture after crashing into wall on Turn 3.
July 7, 2000: NASCAR driver Kenny Irwin.
Crash site: New Hampshire International Speedway.
Cause of death: Basal skull fracture. (Died on the same turn as Adam Petty).
Oct. 14, 2000: NASCAR Craftsman Truck driver Tony Roper. Crash site: Texas Motor Speedway. Cause of death: Head injuries suffered after crashing into a wall the night before.
Source: HANS, news reports
Chicago Tribune/Phil Geib and Drew Sottardi
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Wednesday: Drivers’ views on safety.
