Start your engines!
Play RPM.ESPN Stock Car Challenge!
Win a Honda S2000!
Play The CART Challenge powered by Honda!
|
|
Thursday, March 1
Some drivers a committee is needed
Associated Press
Drivers who rubbed tires and banged fenders for years with The Intimidator are now talking about forming a safety committee.
Dale Earnhardt became the fourth NASCAR racer killed in the last nine months when he wrecked in the Daytona 500, and his death has rekindled a desire by drivers to unite over safety.
"We drivers, as a community we need to start having a voice in what happens and what some of the rules are," Todd Bodine said. "If we could form a committee, we'd have a single voice able to speak for us and make us heard."
NASCAR president Mike Helton said the sanctioning body already is listening, and sees no need for a committee.
"It does not take two or three drivers to get our attention," he said. "It does not take a committee for us to react.
"Everybody in this garage area is part of a communication process where NASCAR adapts to and adjusts to in a very pragmatic, across-the-board situation."
Many of the sport's superstars seemed headed in the direction of a driver committee last season, after Adam Petty, Kenny Irwin and Tony Roper were killed. Jeff Gordon, Jeff Burton, Dale Jarrett and Rusty Wallace were outspoken on safety issues.
The idea of a committee eventually fizzled, but it's back now, a result of Earnhardt's death Feb. 18 in the season-opening race.
Drivers want a group that would collect input and present it to NASCAR.
Among the first members would be Wallace, who raced right behind Earnhardt until the sport's greatest driver struck the wall on the final turn of the last lap at Daytona International Speedway.
"A lot of guys might be uncomfortable talking to the NASCAR fellows. I'm not," Wallace said. "I'd be comfortable bringing the ideas and talking about different things with NASCAR if they'd like me to do that."
Burton is almost insistent that the drivers unite.
"We need to come together a little bit, maybe have a neighborhood meeting to figure out how to fix this problem," he said. "I think we need to be willing to spend time, energy and effort, even money if we have to, to make ourselves available to help with the problem.
"And I think NASCAR needs to be a little more open to listening to us in a formal setting."
But Helton said NASCAR has done "over 50 things since 1994 in reaction to safety issues." Helton believes formation of a board might make a driver reluctant to approach him about issues without first taking them to a committee.
|
“ |
NASCAR doesn't make things mandatory. It's not mandatory that I wear a fire suit or helmet -- it's recommended. I could get into a car with shorts and a T-shirt on if I wanted.” |
|
|
—Todd Bodine |
"I wonder sometimes if formalizing things too much actually slows it down," he said. "Formalizing the communications process doesn't necessarily mean it's going to work."
Bodine said he got a similar response from Helton when he met with the president last weekend in Rockingham, N.C.
"He said there's really not a need for it because he'll listen to anybody that comes through the door," Bodine said. "I just thought maybe it would be better if we had an organization or a group, a kind of clearinghouse to speak and to organize this thing and to generate better ideas. He didn't agree."
NASCAR has never accepted driver unification and the racers haven't really tried to push collectively since 1969. Then, they were worried about tires holding up under extreme speed on the new facility in Talladega, Ala., which to this day the fastest track on the circuit.
Bill France Sr., NASCAR's founder, used replacement drivers, and there were no major accidents. Hopes of driver unity collapsed.
Bill Elliott set a qualifying record of 212.809 mph in Talladega in 1987, but Bobby Allison's car became airborne during a race and nearly entered a packed grandstand. NASCAR responded by putting a device on the carburetors that slowed but bunched the cars.
Now, chain-reaction accidents are commonplace there and at Daytona, where 19 cars wrecked just 26 laps before Earnhardt was killed.
Since the Talladega failure 32 years ago, drivers have been hesitant to push many issues with the sanctioning body. So, to find safer ways to race, teams have typically tested equipment on their own.
"NASCAR doesn't make things mandatory," Bodine said. "It's not mandatory that I wear a fire suit or helmet -- it's recommended. I could get into a car with shorts and a T-shirt on if I wanted."
But Earnhardt's death has shaken the drivers to the core, and they think a dialogue with NASCAR is necessary.
"We don't want to take a right when somebody else is taking a left," said Winston Cup champion Bobby Labonte. "It's a deal where we all need to hold hands and go forward instead of backward." Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories
|
|
|
|
