During the Pocono 500 today there was an on track incident that resulted in Juan Pablo Montoya’s #42 Dodge parked at the exit to pit road, on fire. Montoya escaped uninjured but the car remained on fire for a couple of minutes before safety workers arrived to put it out. This is just one example of an incident that begs the question: why doesn’t NASCAR have a dedicated safety team?
Each week at the track safety workers are made up of local firefighters, EMT’s, paramedics, and doctors. It is up to the individual tracks to provide these personnel for the races. And while these are always very qualified individuals, NASCAR is the only major American racing series that does not have a dedicated safety team that travels to every race. Both the NHRA and IRL have a professional teams that attend each race.
The NHRA’s Safety Safari is a nine man team that travels the circuit. The team includes firefighters, EMTs, and a fleet of specialized safety vehicles. They are responsible for accident response and maintenance of the track. The Indy Racing League has its own group, the Delphi Safety Team. It is made up of 15 people including firefighters, paramedics, trauma doctors, and a safety director. They also have dedicated safety vehicles that are equipped with firefighting, medical, and other safety equipment. Both organizations supplement their staffs with local personnel but the core group is in charge.
Having a team that travels the series offers many advantages. Being able to quickly extract an injured driver and properly handle any accidents would be the biggest. The team would be trained specifically to deal with wrecked racecars, something that local workers don’t see every week. Also, having medical staff that know the drivers and their histories would allow for better care after wrecks.
A few months ago, Ryan Newman spoke publicly about the need for such a team. His main argument revolves around the fact that local workers aren’t familiar with racecars. The amount of time to get a driver out would be reduced if the safety people had an intimate knowledge of the cars and how they are built.
NASCAR has come leaps and bounds in the last few seasons in terms of track and car safety. The COT, HANS devices, safer barriers, and better seats are all innovations. The next logical step is a dedicated safety team.
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on Jun 8th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
[...] Reads: - Kasey Kahne Captures Third Win in Four Weeks (Racing for the Win) - NASCAR Needs Dedicated Safety Team (NASCAR Insiders) Tags: aj allmendinger, Bobby Labonte, brian vickers, Carl Edwards, chad knauss, [...]
on Jun 9th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Amen!
on Jun 10th, 2008 at 10:41 am
my question to all of you experts. Have any of you worked on a raceway and have any of you taken the nascar advanced training program.
Please do your research before being critical of the sitiations that occur on the raceways.
on Jun 10th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Rick, I am in no way trying to bash the track safety workers. I work alongside a fireman every week on pit road and know quite a few of these individuals. They are great, dedicated people and do a great job. And with a dedicated safety team, these people would still be very necessary. My point is, is that especially when it comes to driver safety and care, the sport would be better served to have a team of people that dealt with these drivers week in and week out.
The issue at Pocono wasn’t one of response time or worker compentency, there were two workers right there when the car came to a stop. But even so, I think its hard to find a reason not to have a dedicated safety group.
on Jun 10th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
As a former volunteer firefighter, a former short track racer, and a former race car builder, I have to agree that a dedicated safety team would be a step in the right direction. And, I also must agree that the NHRA Safety Safari are a team worth modeling.
on Jun 11th, 2008 at 12:07 am
CART had the ultimate safety team to which all other series should aspire. The Simple Green Safety Team included up to 40 permanent staff and an actual on-site mobile hospital that traveled to each race. It included the medical records of each driver and a permanent trauma team familiar with each driver. They did it over a decade ago and leaves open the question, why not now?