Unfortunately, it has taken another auto racing death to reinforce the need for safety in the sport.
Joe Rebman, a 21-year-old sprint car driver, was killed Friday night after his car hit the wall and flipped on its side in the closing laps of a feature race in Mansfield, Ohio. According to the Associated Press story, officials determined that Rebman, who refused to install a head-stabilizing device, died from injuries to his head and chest.
Now, concerns are being raised over the safety of sprint cars.
NASCAR’s biggest series, the Nextel Cup, was vilified for not requiring more stringent safety for its drivers following four deaths within a year culminated by the death of its biggest star, Dale Earnhardt, in 2001. Sprint cars are about to face the same fate.
Danny Horner, a local sprint car driver who travels to national events, said the differences between safety in NASCAR and sprint cars is minimal.
“We’re running about the same stuff that they are,” Horner said. “It’s not mandatory. A lot of the guys run the Hans device. We’ve got just as safe seats. It’s pretty safe. Unless they made a bigger car, then it wouldn’t be a sprint car.”
Horner said egos play a part in the equation of safety, something brought to life by the death of Earnhardt. Earnhardt, who liked to wear his seat belts looser than advised, died when his car hit a wall at Daytona International Speedway at nearly 200 miles per hour.
The death shook the sport and began a safety revolution.
Horner didn’t wear a neck brace until three weeks ago when a track in Washington required it.
“I still don’t like them because they are so uncomfortable,” Horner said. “You can’t get any air into them. It’s really old technology. They don’t even work that good.”
Nonetheless, Horner plans on wearing the brace in the future and is investing in a Hans device next season.
When he traveled to Knoxville, Iowa – a track that has witnessed two deaths in the past two months – for the 360 Nationals two weeks ago, Horner saw how important safety was.
“Knoxville is a big place and they are pretty strict,” he said. “They check your helmets, gloves, fire equipment, seat belts. You can’t have seat belts over two years old.”
It is time that a safety requirement is made, a decision Horner said would be a good idea because it would be the same at every track across the country.
While buying certain devises might become expensive, the deaths of drivers from local tracks to well-known speedways has brought to light the need for a national requirement.
The Cottage Grove Speedway has 13 safety requirements, ranging from fire resistant clothing to the drag link having to be tethered to the frame, as well as eight items of suggested safety equipment such as a neck collar and a helmet restraint.
Nothing is wrong with sprint car racing. It is like gun safety – the instruments shouldn’t be banned, just the users.
Whether requirements are made or not, drivers need to wake up and take responsibility as Horner has. Nobody wants to see a body being scraped off the track.
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