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Yep. We managed to have an entire stock car fly into a catchfence while it was still going at speed. It wasn't a glancing blow like Earl at Dega in '09, and it wasn't a partial dig-in like Larson in '13. It was the whole damn car at FULL SPEED, and all we have are "minor injuries".

I know that continuously striving to improve safety measures is necessary, but holy shit, I'd say what happened in the wee-hours of Monday morning was a miracle - not because they got lucky, but because they learned from Earl and Larson's wrecks. Because technology and innovation are an incredible thing, and race tracks have made things better and better since Lee Petty, Cale Yarborough and Jimmy Horton all ended up in parking lots, and since Bobby Allison paid the fans a visit in '87.

It's human nature to question the world after something bad happens ("WHY OH WHY DOES MY CHILD HAVE AUTISM???? I'M GOING TO GOOGLE IT TO FIND OUT!!"), but... c'mon folks.

Actual suggestion from a caller on Sirius Speedway with Dave Moody yesterday:

Build a lexan glass wall that can raise by the push of a button in two thousandths of a second when a car is deemed to be coming for the fence.

I kid you not.

You said this as a jest, but the fact is you're 100% right. It does come with the territory. No one expects it to happen of course, but to me the biggest bitch I have with all this internet dick swinging is this idea that fans getting hurt is such a shock. It's no different than a baseball fan getting hit by a ball or a bat. Can still be badly hurt or killed. The chances of being hurt as a fan at the race track are a lot higher than other sports due to the nature of the sport the fans are paying money to go see.

Do the lot of fans who attend races really not believe they might be killed at the track? However remote the possibility, it's still a possibility that we as fans need to accept. If you can't or won't, then stay home.

Hell, I've been hit by stones, rubber and all sort of random shit from time to time. Thought I broke my hand at Rolling Wheels when I got hit right at the base of my thumb by a rock the size of an old cell phone. Hurt like hell and bruised my whole hand for a week or two. Just part of the deal. And I was sitting in the second to top row. That rock, two feet farther North, would've caught me right in the temple.

Everytime this happens we all (I include myself here) make the same arguments, but seriously, what solution is there other than what we have? You want to slow the cars down? 747's take off at 163mph... That would mean you'd have a top speed of 145-150mph to be reasonably safe. People all over the net on multiple racing sites proclaim that you cannot tell the difference between 200 and 180 or 175 and that just as good a race could happen at 100mph as 200.

Bullshit. Pure bullshit. If anyone thinks that NASCAR has attendance problems now, slow these cars down to 175mph and see how no one shows up.

I'll take Geoff Bodine's comment from 20 years ago... Put all the fans in the upper decks and take the plates off. Use all the seats on the bottom for extra billboard space.

Pete Pistone found an interesting stat and tweeted it... in 2014 1,750 people were injured by foul balls at MLB games. Yet baseball only has netting behind home plate. Anyone who has been to a ballpark knows all about the "caution watch for flying bats and balls" signs.

Look at the woman at the Red Sox game this year. Seriousl injured by a broken bat that hit her in the stands. Lost a ton of blood. The risk is there in every sport. You cannot tell me, for the love of God, you don't know there is any risk sitting in the stands at an auto race? If not, you're already brain dead.

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Baseball is a sport where the ball is suppose to go into the stands, or you just have a really fucking boring sport. It's an inherent risk. Car parts going into the stands, however, is not suppose to be part of the sport. What about the woman who was maimed at Fenway earlier this year? Her life is probably never going to be the same. Are you saying she doesn't have beef just because she should have expected having her grey matter removed by a broken bat?


All racing fans should to be prepared to hit by objects at all times. Kinda like getting water splashed on you by Shamu at SeaWorld.


But that's local tracks, where beyond the confines of the small community, nobody really gives a shit. It's not a multi-million dollar business like Nascar. When I was 9, I was standing by the fence in Haubstadt and got hit in the face by a dirt clod the size of a baseball. It busted my nose and gave me a good shiner. Of course it hurt, but after a while I wore it as a badge of honor. That's because I was 9 and had no job, no responsibilities, no concept of money, and my dad was really proud of me because, other than basketball, I was never a stick-and-ball sports kinda child. Plus, I shouldn't have been standing there in the first place.


Keep the racing the same, but Nascar should be prepared to pay up. Why should fans carry the full burden of getting injured at a Nascar event, where pieces of car going beyond the fence is NOT part of the sport? Fans are the ones spending their hard earned money and dedicating their free time to be there and enjoy themselves. Nascar should bear some responsibility, and they should compensate any fan who is inconvenienced by getting injured, how much depends on the situation.


Slow them down to 175 and MAYBE lose attendance, or reduce fan seating by 50% and definitely lose attendance. That's like chopping off your head to spite your face.

I'm not saying slow the cars down, I'm not saying I have all (or any) of the answers. I don't know how to make racing at plate tracks safer for the fans without making the racing suffer. What I am saying is fans getting hurt has occasionally been part of Nascar's history, but that does not absolve Nascar of ALL the blame.

It is society now to scream and yell over things as loud as you can til some knee jerk reaction happens. Just take the past 6 months and look around at the country.

Ok rant time...

All these people with their airbag catch fence or plastic shield stupid ideas on the NASCAR radio channel need to stfu. You really think your stupid ass, sitting on your recliner, jobless, watching the Steve Wilkos show, smoking Malboro Reds, waiting for your wife to finish dinner while your 10 kids separated by 7 years beat the Fuck out of each other, really can come up with a better idea then these smart as Fuck people with engineering degrees that do this for a living!?.. I mean a fence with airbags!? Wtf?? God shut up with all the idiot idea suggestions and let me listen to stuff that doesn't make me want to rip my ears apart with rusty forks. I don't know how these hosts do it...

Am I one of the few who thing the catch fence did a fantastic job??

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It did exactly what it was designed to do as far as I'm concerned. A fucking race car flew through the air, progress unimpeded, and impacted that fence directly. It kept the car inside the track and absorbed enough of the impact to not kill the driver/(passenger at that point).

I think a smaller debris fence in front of the lower seats would be pretty sensible because this is the 2nd or third time people in lower seats were hit by smaller debris that got through/came off of the fence. They moved the seats back already. Unless they just plan to stop selling seats, there's really not much left to do.

Imagine if this exact accident happened 8 years ago.

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"The track's wet, that's what I think about it. Fucking shit gets wet when it rains."
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The fence did a great job.

Does Nascar compensate injured spectators without the need for suing? I'm talking medical assistance and treatment only, like some sort of insurance cover included in the ticket, not the gold-digging trial where delusional fans sue Nascar after a crash for those additional sweet millions.

I'll have to disagree with this. Some of the most entertaining racing I see happens at average speeds of under 100 mph in the K&N series, not 200+ mph racing at most of the big ovals in Cup.

Look at F1. No one complains about the speeds being lower with the current regs, just that they don't sound as exciting as they used to.

They do actually, specially after the GP2 at Monaco was faster than the last cars of the grid. But having a dominant team, normally dominant driver from flag to flag and farting sounds surely are far worse....

Yea but that's just because the GP2 regs were not changed along with F1, like how when NASCAR had that same problem when the Nationwide cars were lapping faster around Bristol than the Cup cars when the COT was introduced and soon NASCAR introduced the tapered spacers in the Nationwide cars to slow them down. But majority of F1 fans don't follow GP2 and they have mainly complained about the sounds not the speed.

Lol... I just bought a new Kia Optima, so I have a free trial of Sirius till the end of August and have been listening to the NASCAR channel (as well as Octane). I quite enjoy most all the shows on there and have heard some of these callers over the last several days.... seems like the smarter ones call in the morning when Bagley is on, they actually brought up some very valid points, such as the ticket disclaimer this morning. It definitely seems like Dave Moody gets the idiots of the day but that's fine with me, because after listening to some of his crap... I don't particularly care for that guy anyway.

I pretty sure the IROC cars averaged around 175 at Daytona and Talladega.

That racing was phenomenal.

I routinely watch great racing at 100mph or less... It's on a half mile track, not a 2.5 mile super speedway.

And as for the fence, it did a spectacular job.

So just because it's a 2.5 mile super speedway they have to run 210+ mph like they do at Michigan? Look at how good IROC racing was on the big ovals and they ran slower than the trucks but it was quite a spectacular show.

Racing on big ovals has two components for me. There's the actual passing and so forth, and there's the actual speed and the thrill from the speed in and of itself. I really enjoyed the higher speeds at Indy this year in preparation for qualifying, for example. It was a big letdown for me when they slowed them down to race speed.

No fans got killed, catch fence did its job.

Austin Dillion didn't get killed, catch fence did its job.

That engine didn't go in the seats, catch fence did its job.

That engine didn't get go through a drivers windshield, catch fence did its job.

No tires landed in that seats this time, the pits, a drivers windshield, catch fence did its job.

That camera man was a couple yards in front of the impact area, catch fence did its job.

Kezelowski didn't hit a vulnerable part of Dillons car, catch fence did its job.

Dillion didn't hit a post with a vulnerable part of his car, catch fence did its job.

No other flying car parts went through the huge hole in the fence, catch fence did its job.

... I can keep going here but really once again nascar points the gun at its head, pulls the trigger and finds an empty chamber.

http://www.racer.com/more/viewpoints/it ... val-racing

A Brit telling America what to do?! That's not what the founding fathers had in mind!