Safety in numbers

      I was perusing the internet and came across some very interesting videos.  They were discussing the evolution of driver and spectator safety throughout the history of motor racing.  Unfortunately, most of these safety requirements were made in reaction to horrible accidents in efforts to ensure nothing like this ever happens again.

      Some of these horrible accidents that sometimes claimed the lives of some drivers include the 1955 wreck at LeMans, the wreck that killed Dale Earnheart, the 2008 accident that killed Doug Kalitta, the 1994 San Marino Grad Prix.  The one thing that all of these of these accidents have in common was the fact that regulations and safety precautions were put second to power and lower times.  If these two things were put after safety like they are in every legitimate and legal form of racing today, then these atrocities may have been avoidable.

      Some of the new technologies added for driver and spectator safety is catch fences and higher padded walls.  Especially seen in NASCAR racing, catch fences can hold back all major parts of a car that happen to go airborne and hit said fence.  Built to intentionally disperse the forces and break, it has saved countless lives.  The higher and padded walls are not limited to only NASCAR, as they are seen alongside sand and gravel traps alongside danger zones of racecourses all across the world.  These too are designed with simple physics in mind, the idea is that the longer the time of the impact, the lesser the force is on the driver is.

      A safety feature that is found not on the track per say, but on the race cars and had begun to find its way into street cars, is the idea of cars breaking apart when an accident happens.  This is most obviously seen in formula 1 cars, where the entire front and rear ends of the car are built to fall away from the drivers tub.  The other form of racing where this is highlighted the most is NASCAR, there is a full rolled steel roll cage type frame.  However, the front end of the car up until the firewall is designed to break away from the diver's cage if the car goes into a roll or other horrid accident.

      Other safety precautions include limiting of engine sizes and cylinder displacement or number of cylinders, along with creating universal dimensions of the cars allowed in certain classes.  For example, GT3 class cars have different regulations then a prototype car, even though they both race on the same course at the same time.  These regulations are for two reasons, for one, it limits the amount of advantages that a team with more money, and it keeps the drivers on a more level playing field, and it is not decided strictly on power and capability of the car.

     As the level of competition and speed rises, pray that safety keeps pace as well, otherwise another scene like the LeMans race of 1955 may make a re-appearance.