August 2nd, 2010 
Journo To use the words of the late David Poole, Dale Earnhardt saved Elliott Sadler’s life on Sunday.
What happened to Elliott Sadler on the backstretch (between turns one and two) late in the race at Pocono isn’t exactly clear to those of us who didn’t happen to be in a car and on the backstretch at the time (thanks Kurt Busch and ESPN). What we do know though is Pocono needs to make safety upgrades, like yesterday, and the COT and HANS Device saved Elliott Sadler from serious injury or death.
From what I saw of that wreck, it was one of the worst in recent memory. After hitting the inside Armco barrier, Sadler was propelled back out onto the track – a distance that’s probably a good 50 feet. In the slow motion replay on ESPN, Sadler’s whole body can be seen lurching forward. That tremendous amount of force ripped the car apart. See the engine being towed back to the garage. Sadler was luckily able to walk away with nothing but the wind knocked out of him.
For all of the criticism its gotten and complaining that’s been done about it, the COT has been a wonderful safety innovation. It has no doubt saved lives. Ask Micheal McDowell. Now ask Elliott Sadler.
Add to that the proliferation of the HANS Device and the SAFER barriers and NASCAR has become a much safer place to compete.
In the days leading up to the race, Pocono President Brandon Igdalsky, grandson of the Drs. Mattioli, addressed plans for some much needed safety features, including SAFER barriers between turns 1 and 2, and 2 and 3, and a much needed catch fence. It’s about time.
Looking around on the net Sunday night some were suggesting Pocono shouldn’t be on the schedule. I couldn’t disagree more. It’s a unique facility with great fans (though two races seven weeks apart is ridiculous). I do think though the track needed to have made these upgrades before other things were done – say for instance a $16 million solar farm.
It’s certainly easy to play Monday morning quarterback on this – but I think anyone who has ever seen the facility can see there are a lot of upgrades that need be done. As usual I digress.
Who knows what would have happened to Sadler had he not had the benefit of the current safety features. I shutter to think. Through all the complaining about ESPN missing the moment (big deal), the biggest story here is what didn’t happen and what we fortunately didn’t see.
What NASCAR has done since February 2001 truly has made the sport safer. There have been no serious injuries and no deaths. And thankfully on Sunday we were able to keep that record intact.
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Pefectly put…I am very happy Elliot is Ok, the plan worked… good job NASACAR.
Now the question is , why the heck do angles like that still exist on track? WTF?
And the emmy for absolute worst camera coverage of all time goes to ESPN for not having any camera angles of Elliot Sadler gettting his engine knocked out…. and I mean theat literally… he got his engine knocked out.. I have never seen that before… and I still havent.
If Elliot is going to bother to wreck like that…. the least they can do is catch it on camera….. ESPN FAIL
I am just so glad he is OK. That was the scariest wreck I have seen since Texas Qualifying in 2008. Agreed though, Pocono needs to get to work on these upgrades THIS MORNING! Don’t waste a second! Also what a get well victory for (THE MAN) Jack Roush! Way to go Greg Biffle! Also 4th week in a row that neither Johnson or a Busch Brother has won! YES!
PS
I am surprised at the way you say “BIG DEAL” about missing the camera shot.
I used to water competitively and we were always pushing it to the limit, and we always had camera rolling (even in practice ) so when we crashed and burned we could analyze what happened…. not to mention if we have to feel the pain at least we can own the moment.
There are too cameras at the track to miss this shot, and it is inexcusable, and saying “BIG DEAL” is insulting to both Elliot Sadler the fans who are watching.
BIG DEAL? Yeah it is kind of a BIG DEAL.
If these stupid TV producers were not so anal about always wanting to get the absolute tightest, close ups of zits on football players faces and zooming WAY IN in on Kurt’s car they could have at least had one wide angle of what happened to Elliot …
IF FOR NOTHING ELSE, IT WOULD BENEFICIAL AND EDUCATIONAL TO SEE WHAT THE HECK HAPPENEND, AND HOW EXACLTY THE CAR BOUNCED…
yeah it is a big deal.
Elliot may have had the wind knocked out of him yesterday. But if I was Elliot, I would demand a head to toe MRI. Collisions like that can cause all kinds of internal injuries that an infield care center can’t detect. I guarantee you , he woke up today feeling like a piano landed on his head. That was a viscous collision. Pocono has a lot of work to do before NASCAR’s next race there. I’d love to see one of those races go away.
With all the things that are wrong with NASCAR, and with all the times I bash the system, safety is the sport’s greatest accomplishment. They have put a lot of energy, study, and money into demanding that vehicles be the safest, and the driver protected to the utmost. No one can question the commitment of NASCAR to safety for all, participants and fans included. All the accolades for these safe cars should go to NASCAR.
Too bad some of the 15.5 million dollars that was spent on the solar farm couldn’t have been spent first on making sure that a track whose ‘safety features’ are about 10 years or maore outdated.
At the very least, shorten the race. Please. I understand every race can’t be Daytona or Bristol. However, there was zero going on for the middle 1/3 of the race or more. I mean even Fox was trying hard to find some sort of racing.
And NASCAR has to address the aero advantage the leader, and seemingly only the leader has. After 10 laps leading, it became a joke. There should ALWAYS be a *chance* that 2nd place can find its way to the front if he gets better.
Gotta agree with you Kevin. My brother flew f-4′s and f-18′s in the air force. After 1 flight simulation that took your body to the limit of g forces , 2 days later he was in the hospital for kidney stone pains. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
Check out this guy’s take and then realize that the picture from the camera that was available was, at best, very bad. He does an engineer’s reconstruction and you will see that will it was a very hard hit, it is not the worst that anyone has endured.
http://fasttrackrc.blogspot.com/2010_08_01_archive.html
Pass this on to all those that don’t understand physics and that Elliott Sadler could not have hit “head-on”, then bounced backward, turned left and continued onto the track. If he hit head-on in a 90 degree ell in the ARMCO his car would still be there post-impact… the magic bullet theory doesn’t work here either.
NASCAR does deserve props for car safety. As for track safety they’re doing a good job there as well, but obviously still more needs to be done.
And for Pocono that was obvious when Kahne almost cleared the wall last time there. He’d probably be taking a dirt nap right now if the car still had the wing on it.
The fence that was hit appeared to be engineered to give on impact, and it did just that. If it would have been concrete with a full earth backing the outcome would likely have been very, very bad.
But it is an obsolete design and we know we can do better. Plus even though the layout allowed for deflection, and as the previous post points out, the car did in fact deflect, the angles are entirely too obtuse and a change is definitely in order for this as well.
So all of this to say just get the upgrades done before the next race and be thankful the car has been good enough to deal with this track’s current deficiencies so far. But next time we may not be so fortunate if the fixes don’t get done.
The COT is safe, no doubt… but until this year and the return of the spoiler, it seemed to leave a lot to be desired for exciting racing action.
That or maybe the drivers we were used to being exciting were sucking eggs with it.
I’m glad Elliot was ok and hope he got checked out more thoroughly.
Maybe NASCAR needs to take a hard look at all the facilities they currently race at, in all series from a new point of view… to see what may be prevented from occurring in the future.
-W