Who's the Hottest Female Race Car Driver

[Thorn]

No my understanding was that it was one of those things that regardless of safety precautions deaths will occur in racing as it's a dangerous sport. In Scott's case it's my understanding that the force of the engine blowing knocked him out and he was unable to drop the emergency drag chute.

You're probably right. Definitely the chutes weren't deployed. From the video I suspect that even if they had been, there is a good chance that they'd have burned up because the fire was so extensive. Nonetheless, the shutdown area at Englishtown is extremely short; most of the drivers have commented on that. It's surrounded by subdivision and has nowhere to go (my husband is a Jerseyite and my info comes from him). He also said that a similar problem exists at many of the older tracks where building now surrounds them. There seems to be a consensus that the cars now are just simply going too fast. It wasn't all that long ago that speeds in excess of 300 mph were reserved for the salt flats; now we're seeing that in the quarter mile drag strips.

At the same time, I think that my husband was also trying to allay my deep (and justified!) concerns about his new direction in racing. High 8s, mid 9s, as he was doing before, okay, that's still controllable though we did have an incident last year. But when you get into the mid 4s -- damn that's just too fast for the venue. I don't watch for the accidents (though I know some do), and for sure I don't want to see people killed!

 

[Mott the Hoople]

You're probably right. Definitely the chutes weren't deployed. From the video I suspect that even if they had been, there is a good chance that they'd have burned up because the fire was so extensive. Nonetheless, the shutdown area at Englishtown is extremely short; most of the drivers have commented on that. It's surrounded by subdivision and has nowhere to go (my husband is a Jerseyite and my info comes from him). He also said that a similar problem exists at many of the older tracks where building now surrounds them. There seems to be a consensus that the cars now are just simply going too fast. It wasn't all that long ago that speeds in excess of 300 mph were reserved for the salt flats; now we're seeing that in the quarter mile drag strips.

At the same time, I think that my husband was also trying to allay my deep (and justified!) concerns about his new direction in racing. High 8s, mid 9s, as he was doing before, okay, that's still controllable though we did have an incident last year. But when you get into the mid 4s -- damn that's just too fast for the venue. I don't watch for the accidents (though I know some do), and for sure I don't want to see people killed!

I know what you mean. First time I went to the Indy 500 Poncho Carter slammed into the wall right in front of us and went rolling down the track in the roll cage of the car. Given the state of safety technology back in 1980 I knew I had just watched a man die.....sumbitch if he didn't survive and was back there the next year.

Point is, that was my first race and it took the blood lust out of me.

 

[Minister of Truth]

LET'S HEAR IT FOR

THE CRASHES

 

[uscitizen]

The crashes are the only good part, the rest is boring.

 

[Mott the Hoople]

The crashes are the only good part, the rest is boring.

Hey sometimes it's the fans who get killed. I was at the 87 Indy 500 when a man in our stands was hit by tire that came lose from Tony Bettenhuasens car and was punted into the stands by Roberto Guerrero. Hit some poor schmuck from Wisconsin in the head and killed him.

 

[uscitizen]

Hey sometimes it's the fans who get killed. I was at the 87 Indy 500 when a man in our stands was hit by tire that came lose from Tony Bettenhuasens car and was punted into the stands by Roberto Guerrero. Hit some poor schmuck from Wisconsin in the head and killed him.

Now that is real spectator participation.