Flying tire kills fan at NHRA race

[Moderator1]

Ugh.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/21/AR2010022104359.html


I covered an NHRA event near here one year when an exploding engine sent a part into some fan's head. The guy was sent to the hospital but eventually A-OK.

 

[93Devil]

Why does this seem like an annual story?

Maybe not just limited to NHRA, but doesn't it seem like people are killed every year by bouncing tires or flying parts?

 

[slappy4428]

Saw the video on Sportscenter this morning... pretty nasty wreck, with te car going sideways along the center divider and oil spilling out of the engine...

 

[PCLoadLetter]

A good friend of mine was doing PR for this event. He figured weather would be the biggest headache this weekend.

Scary as hell the way the wheel just flew off. I don't know how you avoid that, though -- wheel tethers probably won't do much when it's that big and has that much torque.

 

[playthrough]

Very scary. I've seen that kind of crash before where a wheel comes off but rebounds off a wall and just goes down track. This thing hopped the wall and continued bounding maybe 30 feet in the air. Like PC said, I don't think a tether is possible.

The driver, Antron Brown, is a terrific guy. Hate for any driver to have to carry that burden.

 

[Bob Cook]

Very scary. I've seen that kind of crash before where a wheel comes off but rebounds off a wall and just goes down track. This thing hopped the wall and continued bounding maybe 30 feet in the air. Like PC said, I don't think a tether is possible.

The driver, Antron Brown, is a terrific guy. Hate for any driver to have to carry that burden.

This reminds me a lot of the 1987 Indy 500, where a spectator was killed by a flying tire. It came off one car and went up the nose of the other (I think it was off of Roberto Guerrero's car and up the nose of Tony Bettenhausen's), and ended up hitting a fan in the top row in a corner of one of the highest stands of the track. Not long after, open-wheel required tethers on tires so this wouldn't happen again.

 

[murphyc]

A very sad story. I had the pleasure of photographing NHRA a couple of times when the national series visited the Seattle area. It's an incredible feeling when the cars roar right past you. Groundshaking is far too gentle a term. TV simply can't adequately convey the experience.
That said, I covered those races before I got married. I don't know if I would want to now. I would say drag racing is easily one of the most dangerous sports for a photographer. Quite often photogs are clumped together near the starting line for the launch shots. If something goes wrong at the launch and parts get strewn, you'd better be praying. And as yesterday showed, it's not just the people directly alongside the track that have to be worried.

 

[Bubbler]

Very scary. I've seen that kind of crash before where a wheel comes off but rebounds off a wall and just goes down track. This thing hopped the wall and continued bounding maybe 30 feet in the air. Like PC said, I don't think a tether is possible.

The driver, Antron Brown, is a terrific guy. Hate for any driver to have to carry that burden.

This reminds me a lot of the 1987 Indy 500, where a spectator was killed by a flying tire. It came off one car and went up the nose of the other (I think it was off of Roberto Guerrero's car and up the nose of Tony Bettenhausen's), and ended up hitting a fan in the top row in a corner of one of the highest stands of the track. Not long after, open-wheel required tethers on tires so this wouldn't happen again.

Unfortunately, it still happens, though. Like PC said, there's not much that can be done. Tethers help, but they aren't fail-safe.

 

[murphyc]

Very scary. I've seen that kind of crash before where a wheel comes off but rebounds off a wall and just goes down track. This thing hopped the wall and continued bounding maybe 30 feet in the air. Like PC said, I don't think a tether is possible.

The driver, Antron Brown, is a terrific guy. Hate for any driver to have to carry that burden.

This reminds me a lot of the 1987 Indy 500, where a spectator was killed by a flying tire. It came off one car and went up the nose of the other (I think it was off of Roberto Guerrero's car and up the nose of Tony Bettenhausen's), and ended up hitting a fan in the top row in a corner of one of the highest stands of the track. Not long after, open-wheel required tethers on tires so this wouldn't happen again.

I thought the wheel tethers came to be after a wheel killed spectators at the 1999 IRL race in Charlotte? Seems like shortly after that NASCAR also started requiring wheel tethers. But like others have said, nothing is fail safe, especially in NHRA when you're talking thousands of horsepower.

 

[Bob Cook]

Very scary. I've seen that kind of crash before where a wheel comes off but rebounds off a wall and just goes down track. This thing hopped the wall and continued bounding maybe 30 feet in the air. Like PC said, I don't think a tether is possible.

The driver, Antron Brown, is a terrific guy. Hate for any driver to have to carry that burden.

This reminds me a lot of the 1987 Indy 500, where a spectator was killed by a flying tire. It came off one car and went up the nose of the other (I think it was off of Roberto Guerrero's car and up the nose of Tony Bettenhausen's), and ended up hitting a fan in the top row in a corner of one of the highest stands of the track. Not long after, open-wheel required tethers on tires so this wouldn't happen again.

I thought the wheel tethers came to be after a wheel killed spectators at the 1999 IRL race in Charlotte? Seems like shortly after that NASCAR also started requiring wheel tethers. But like others have said, nothing is fail safe, especially in NHRA when you're talking thousands of horsepower.

You're right -- I misremembered that 1987 and 1999 are a little more than two years apart.

 

[playthrough]

Saw the video again tonight on SportsCenter (the only way the NHRA can get on SC is with terrible crashes, which I'm sure thrills the league) ... after the wheel snapped off it lagged behind, briefly, as the dragster turned sideways. Then the wheel caught up to the chassis and hit in a way which launched it airborne. Hadn't really noticed that the first time I saw the crash.

Without something to hit, the wheel probably stays close to the ground, within the lanes and continues downtrack safely. Talk about an unthinkable series of events. This version of the video also showed the wheel continuing to bounce away high and fast into what appeared to be a vendor or pit area. Pretty chilling.

 

[Shoeless Joe]

Wheel tethers would do nothing for a dragster or funny car. They're putting roughly 8,000 horses from the engine to the track through the rear wheels.

 

[Rumpleforeskin]

Sounds like something right out of Final Destination.

 

[Bubbler]

Very scary. I've seen that kind of crash before where a wheel comes off but rebounds off a wall and just goes down track. This thing hopped the wall and continued bounding maybe 30 feet in the air. Like PC said, I don't think a tether is possible.

The driver, Antron Brown, is a terrific guy. Hate for any driver to have to carry that burden.

This reminds me a lot of the 1987 Indy 500, where a spectator was killed by a flying tire. It came off one car and went up the nose of the other (I think it was off of Roberto Guerrero's car and up the nose of Tony Bettenhausen's), and ended up hitting a fan in the top row in a corner of one of the highest stands of the track. Not long after, open-wheel required tethers on tires so this wouldn't happen again.

I thought the wheel tethers came to be after a wheel killed spectators at the 1999 IRL race in Charlotte? Seems like shortly after that NASCAR also started requiring wheel tethers. But like others have said, nothing is fail safe, especially in NHRA when you're talking thousands of horsepower.

You're right -- I misremembered that 1987 and 1999 are a little more than two years apart.

The IRL has forgotten it too as there was no mention of that Charlotte race in the last set of media guides I had my hands on.

 

[cjericho]

not to be reactionary or 20-20 with the hindsight but when will tracks have high fencing or screening covering the stands. in hockey after there was a fan death the NHL put netting up in every arena. in auto racing there are several cars and it seems like it's even harder to get out of the way of tires or engine parts. there's no way to catch it or block it.

 

[Shoeless Joe]

In this case, the woman wasn't actually in the stands. She was on the return road.
If you ask drag racing fans, they don't want fencing up. Unlike a circle track, the chances of a car actually going into the stands is too remote to calculate and even this deal had a real slim chance of ever happening. Most drag strips (at least NHRA approved strips) are set up the farther you go down the track the more separated the stands are from the track and they rarely to never go past the finish line where the worst accidents happen. Fans get to sit closer to the starting line and these days, after they cut the percent of nitro used down to about 90 percent after Doug Herbert's engine explosion, the chance of a major event at the starting line that would send shrapnel flying is also very slim.

Yes, I know many will say even if there is a slim chance of something happening you should react. That's not always true. You have a far better chance of getting injured in an auto accident to or from the track than you do being injured during a national event.

 

[Shoeless Joe]

I don't know if this is accurate, but I read today that this was the first spectator fatality at and NHRA national event in 40 years.

 

[Speedway]

To date, here is the most thorough analysis of last weekend's tragedy in Phoenix. NHRA track announcer Alan Reinhart, host Joe Castello, and Antron Brown's DSR teammates Cory McClenathan and Jack Beckman. Some great commentary including a discussion about the media and "citizen" coverage of the accident.

http://media.wforadio.com/archives/archivefiles/20100223-joecastello-tue.mp3

 

[Clerk Typist]

Very scary. I've seen that kind of crash before where a wheel comes off but rebounds off a wall and just goes down track. This thing hopped the wall and continued bounding maybe 30 feet in the air. Like PC said, I don't think a tether is possible.

The driver, Antron Brown, is a terrific guy. Hate for any driver to have to carry that burden.

This reminds me a lot of the 1987 Indy 500, where a spectator was killed by a flying tire. It came off one car and went up the nose of the other (I think it was off of Roberto Guerrero's car and up the nose of Tony Bettenhausen's), and ended up hitting a fan in the top row in a corner of one of the highest stands of the track. Not long after, open-wheel required tethers on tires so this wouldn't happen again.

I thought the wheel tethers came to be after a wheel killed spectators at the 1999 IRL race in Charlotte? Seems like shortly after that NASCAR also started requiring wheel tethers. But like others have said, nothing is fail safe, especially in NHRA when you're talking thousands of horsepower.

You're right -- I misremembered that 1987 and 1999 are a little more than two years apart.

The IRL has forgotten it too as there was no mention of that Charlotte race in the last set of media guides I had my hands on.

There were similar accidents with tires and suspension parts flying into the crowd at Charlotte and Michigan a couple of months apart. The IRL and CART, prodded by their drivers, came up with the wheel tethers for both series.

And yes, the IRL wiped out as much evidence of the Charlotte race as it could from its media guide, because it was stopped before halfway plus 1 lap, and not restarted, because the fence couldn't be repaired quickly. It was the race immediately before Indy in 1999. I believe Greg Ray was the leader at the red flag, and he might have won the pole as well. Teams were paid traveling expenses, but no prize money.

The Michigan 500 was run to conclusion, because the debris went over the fence.

Pre-tether, there was also an IRL night race in Atlanta (like Charlotte a Bruton Smith-owned track) where a tire coming off a car in a big Turn 4 pileup flew over the fence and either into a suite or high into the stands, but there were no injuries.

 

[PCLoadLetter]

To date, here is the most thorough analysis of last weekend's tragedy in Phoenix. NHRA track announcer Alan Reinhart, host Joe Castello, and Antron Brown's DSR teammates Cory McClenathan and Jack Beckman. Some great commentary including a discussion about the media and "citizen" coverage of the accident.

http://media.wforadio.com/archives/archivefiles/20100223-joecastello-tue.mp3

As for Joe's scolding people for spreading misinformation while praising the way those at the scene released information... Ahem.. I'll politely disagree. Unless "Out of respect to the families, we will not be releasing any information" is considered wonderfully forthcoming.