I know a lot of you have probably seen the video of Danica Patrick hitting a Dale Coyne crew member last week during Indy 500 practice.  And I also know that you’ve probably seen a few NASCAR crew guys hit on pit road this season during races.  Journo hit on this topic in his post Staying Safe at the Track but I wanted to offer my perspective on the situations.

The Danica Patrick incident is one in which the crew member just wasn’t paying enough attention.  He most likely had a headset on and didn’t hear her coming, but at the very least, you’ve got to keep your head up.  If you get complacent for a second, it will bite you.  He didn’t see her until it was too late and he ended up with some pretty severe injuries.  Hopefully he will have a full recovery.

Guys getting hit on pit road during a race is a little bit different.  In some cases it can be attributed to not being aware of your surroundings, but a lot of times you see it coming and there isn’t a whole lot you can do.  We’ve seen a few times this year where two cars will be entering their stalls together and they are pitted side by side.  The front car will drive through the still behind its own most times, and the team pitting the car in that stall is at risk.  They are jumping off the wall to service their own car and end up in the path of the car in front.  I think the position in the worst spot is usually the jackman.  He ends up trying to shoot through a small gap between the two cars to be in the right position for the stop, and sometimes there just isn’t enough room.

I can’t speak for everyone, but in my own situation, I don’t even think about getting hit or the dangers.  I’ve got a job to do and when I step off the wall all my focus is on that job.  I think the day you start letting the dangers affect you, is the day you need to find something else to do.  That being said though, I’m not going to do something stupid that will get myself or my teammates hurt.  No pit stop is worth getting injured over.  But, like I always tell my significant other: “we’ve got helmets on, what’s the worst that could happen?”  NASCAR making pit crew guys wear helmets is probably one of the better rules they’ve created.  And honestly, we could probably get hurt pretty bad if things went south, but that is just part of the game.

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