In this dark-cloud year for major-league auto racing, six drivers have been killed in crashes, all in a 3 1/2-month stretch. The count is unusually high compared to recent seasons. Three other drivers have been critically injured.
Tragedy hasn’t discriminated. Two deaths have come in Formula One, two in NASCAR Winston Cup stock cars, one in a USAC sprint and one in an NHRA Top Fuel dragster. Of those sanctioning bodies, only Formula One has made major safety improvements in direct response to the deaths.
“It’s the toughest year we’ve had in a long time,” said Kenny Bernstein, the four-time Funny Car drag racing champion and first to break the 300 m.p.h. barrier. “You go four or five years and have no deaths, then you have something like this.”
From mid-February to late May, these prominent drivers have been killed: Winston Cup veteran Neil Bonnett and rookie Rodney Orr, three days apart in February, in Daytona 500 practice; mega-star Ayrton Senna, May 1, in the Formula One San Marino Grand Prix in Italy, a day after rookie Roland Ratzenberger died in practice; Top Fuel dragster Jimmy Nix of Oklahoma City, May 21, at the Texas Motorplex in Ennis; and five days later, Robbie Stanley in a USAC Sprint in Winchester, Ind.
“I’m tired of losing my friends, and there’s no reason for it to continue,” NASCAR driver Rusty Wallace, who won 10 races in 1993, said after Bonnett and Orr died. “We’ve got to take a look at what’s going on. We can’t just get out there and mash the gas and throw your brains in the trunk.”
Formula One’s Karl Wendlinger, in practice, and Funny Car drag racer Jerry Caminito, in qualifying, were critically injured in crashes a day apart in mid-May. Two months later, NASCAR Winston Cup took another dent. Stock car star Ernie Irvan, who might not race again, suffered a fractured skull and punctured lungs after his car blew a tire and hit a wall head-on in a practice lap for the GM Goodwrench Dealers 400 at Michigan International Speedway in August.
“It’s a hot topic,” Bernstein said of the deaths. “We are saddened by it, but it’s not a subject dwelled on by drivers and owners.”
Almost all the accidents apparently stemmed from mechanical failure rather than driver error. And most involved ramming into concrete walls.
Bonnett, in the midst of a comeback, smashed into a Turn 4 wall. Orr’s car flipped and hit Daytona’s Turn 2 wall upside down in a crash that Winston Cup director Gary Nelson called “the worst I’ve ever seen.” Ratzenberger lost a front stabilizer wing at about 190 m.p.h. Senna, a three-time world champion considered perhaps the most skilled driver ever, suffered a fatal head injury when his car’s front right tire and suspension flew back into his helmet after he drove into a concrete wall. Nix’s car suffered a collapsed wing support and hit a scoreboard at about 270 m.p.h. Stanley spun sideway in a turn and was broadsided by an oncoming car at 100 m.p.h.-plus.
“If the scoreboard wasn’t close to the track,” Bernstein said, “he (Nix) might be alive today.”
Five of the six deaths were in single-car accidents. Counting the three drivers critically hurt, eight of the nine were solitary crashes.
“A single-car accident is the worst because there aren’t other cars around to help dissipate the energy,” said Derek Daly, a former Indy-car and Formula One driver and now an ESPN racing analyst. “The best accident you can have is with 10 cars, because energy is absorbed by others.”
Still, some drivers say they are more at risk in their street cars. Irvan said as much not long before his accident. And racing experts and numbers testify that cars are safer than ever.
“It used to be really dangerous when Sprint cars didn’t have roll bars and Indy cars didn’t protect a driver’s legs well,” said three-time Indianapolis 500 champion Johnny Rutherford, who recalls five Sprint car deaths in 1966.
“Not too many drivers remember the good ol’ days, because not too many drivers survived them,” the legendary A.J. Foyt has said. “If I’d been born 20 years earlier, I’d never have lived this long. Accidents killed back then.”
Safety continually has increased. Thirty years ago, the advent of the fuel cell and mandatory use of methanol reduced fire. Now, cars in general are built of better materials, and drivers are better protected by metal roll cages and walls near the legs.
NASCAR roof flaps were introduced this year to keep cars down after impact and prevent spectacular airborne flips, such as the one Wallace lived to tell about last year. Carburetor restrictor plates have slowed down Winston Cup cars about 20 mph since the mid-1980s to the low 190s on the Daytona and Talladega, Ala., superspeedways. Wing struts have helped drag racing safety. And Indy cars are considered significantly safer this decade, in no small part because of the three bulkhead walls in front and a higher driver side that better protects the head area.
“Two or three years ago, if you hit a wall head-on in an Indy car, chances are you’d get a broken leg,” said Bernstein. “There have been a lot of improvements.”
Numbers support that. Until this year, the last death in a Top Fuel or Funny Car dragster was in 1970, Pete Robinson. The last CART Indy-car death was Jim Hickman’s in 1982 in practice at Milwaukee. In Formula One, it was Elio DeAngelis in 1986. In USAC sprints, Rich Vogler in 1990 in Salem, Ind. In Winston Cup racing, J.D. McDuffie in 1991 in Watkins Glen, N.Y.
The USAC-run Indy 500, whose corners have slowed and pole speeds dropped slightly from 232 m.p.h. since 1992, last claimed a life on race day in 1973 (Swede Savage) and in practice in 1992 (Joey Marcelo). The latter was the first at Indy in 10 years but the 37th overall, most in the early years after the track was built in 1911. By comparison, Daytona International Speedway, which runs a variety of races, has suffered a reported 26 deaths in 35 years.
“It’s not going to go away,” Bernstein said of racing deaths. “All you can do is learn from it and make cars better.”
All of which leads to this question: With safety up and deaths and some speeds down in recent years, why suddenly the rash of six deaths this year?
Death is not a favorite subject among people in racing. Some are defensive talking about it. Some are in denial. And some are just at a loss to explain the rising toll.
“It seems sometimes in life things come in bunches,” said NASCAR boss Bill France. “That’s about the best explanation.”
Said Rutherford: “It just happens. It’s the nature of the business. Unfortunately, the safety issue is like closing the barn door after the horse gets out; something is going to happen.”
One sanctioning body, Formula One, has made major safety revisions in direct reaction to the deaths. Downforce and, thus, speed were reduced. Tracks were ordered to re-evaluate their designs with input from drivers. Areas in front of curves were narrowed and thus slowed. Also, some teams have raised the panels on the driver’s side.
The death of Senna, in particular, rocked the sport. He had made more than $200 million in racing, had won more Formula One poles than anybody else, was considered the best driver ever by many, was a bigger international sports star than Michael Jordan, and rivaled Pele in popularity back home in Brazil. He was 34.
“Senna had an air of invincibility about him,” said Ken Martin, an ESPN racing historian and producer. “His death shocked people because if Senna could be killed, everybody was vulnerable. It shook the foundation.”
Said Daly, the driver-turned-TV analyst, whose five victories include the 12 Hours of Sebring in 1990 and 1991: “Formula One will never recover from losing Senna. The way he was killed could’ve been prevented. He’d be alive today if there was a row of tires in front of the wall.”
For starters, Formula One, which has no U.S. races or drivers, needs more crash-absorbing structure around drivers inside the car, and walls need tire barriers to absorb impact’s energy, Daly says.
“Each sanctioning body needs a safety czar who has the last word,” Daly said. “What Formula One and all of racing needs is somebody who can look farther than today and see dangers down the line. How come nobody knew the cars were too fast three years ago? It’s not too difficult to see that the Formula One cars need three bulkheads in front like Indy cars instead of one.”
“I think the farm system needs to be organized,” said Rutherford. “Some drivers coming up aren’t qualified. In the buy-a-ride situation of today, we have drivers who you don’t know where they came from. They can get in a car at 200 mph. A guy can walk up with $1 million, and a car owner can’t say no.”
