19 replies to this topic

[Locai]

OK, so I haven't read it yet (it's not out yet). But I definitely am planning on getting it.

http://www.champcarw...le.asp?ID=10942

It's written by Dr. Steve Olvey, formerly of ChampCar's safety team. I saw him on "WindTunnel with Dave Despain" last Sunday. Excellent interview. It's worth being reminded that not all of our racing heroes actually drive the cars.

[xflow7]

Yeah, I also thought the WT interview was great and plan on picking up the book

If you've not read it, Sid Watkins book is worth a look too.

[F1Fanatic.co.uk]

Yup read it recently definitely worth picking up - I preferred it to the Sid Watkins ones actually. (Also I don't think this thread is off-topic).

[Jerry Lee]

I got this book for Christmas and read it. It was quite interesting.

Amazing how far safety and medical treatment has progressed over the years.

[Spyker MF1]

I almost had it for Christmas but the parents sayed it was a bit to expensive for the amount of pages. Is this true as I know what they are like and probs just didn't want to spend anymore money on me?

[Jerry Lee]

Originally posted by Spyker MF1
I almost had it for Christmas but the parents sayed it was a bit to expensive for the amount of pages. Is this true as I know what they are like and probs just didn't want to spend anymore money on me?

It is a pretty quick read and I found myself wanting a longer book. Maybe the paperback version will come out soon.

[SennasCat]

I agree with the above. It's a fascinating read, I learnt plenty by reading it.

I read it in one day over the holidays, IIRC it's about 200 odd pages. Dr Olvey is a straight shooter, who is amazingly frank about the time and pressure the gig has brought to his life, and is refreshingly frank and 'un-PC' on his attitudes. A great read for anyone interested in the US scene, motor sport, or even sports medicine. I've also read Sid Watkins' book when it first came out, I would rate 'Rapid Response' as at least as good - which is saying something as there is not much F1 in it, but plenty of US series, with the focus, obviously, being on CART.

It also gave me the joy of using Christmas gift cash for something useful, not yet another pair of socks or some such

[Collombin]

Great for the medical insight, shame about the numerous errors with dates and of certain recollections though.

[Tolyngee]

Originally posted by Jerry Lee
I got this book for Christmas and read it. It was quite interesting.

Amazing how far safety and medical treatment has progressed over the years.

Ummm, no offense, but while I am being sarcastic, when you see film of Roger Williamson's and Riccardo Paletti's deaths, I could hardly use the word "amazing" to describe progress from that... You realize them just sitting there any spitting on Roger's burning corpse to try and extinguish it would look more humane than just standing there and singing "we don't need no water let the mother f-er burn... burn mother f-er, burn..."

At least Purley was man enough to look upset by it all...

I recently watched some stuff on F1, and how Jackie Stewart was trying to get safety standards into F1... Having only started watching F1 in the mid-late 80s, I really REALLY REALLY took for granted that the safety standards that were already in place had been there...

But then you see video from the 50s of hay bails for barriers and hay fires in accidents and such...

Okay, well, ****, them's the 50s... right....?

Well, Jackie's interviews and semi-crusade was in the 70s.... Holy crap, some of it was this bad just a decade prior to my starting memory of F1?

But just how bad was it just a decade earlier?

I was dumbfounded to watch a safety (hopefully not a medical worker...) at the scene of an accident WITH A LIT CIGARETTE IN THEIR MOUTH...

Jackie summed it up pretty f-ing damn well: "are they trying to kill us?"


Then again, I must admit that safety workers not being 100% aware of their surroundings has lead to deaths as well... Pryce comes to mind, and the worker run over in that low-speed full-course yellow track conditions incident in the late 80s/early 90s up in Canada...



But, sarcasm aside, seriously now, things were still so utterly ass-backwards even just 30 years ago that just completely IGNORING an accident scene and denying anything ever happened would have been progress...

Eh, then again, I keep forgetting just how fairly new all the fire-retardant clothing the drivers wear is...

I'd rather deny to myself that there was once a time when seatbelts and full-face helmets weren't mandatory...


Then again, I just got done watching a review of '79... They had the 'skin' off of one of the cars.... The driver was just sitting in what really was in effect _THE_ car... there was absolutely ZERO to protect him in an accident... ZERO... To even call what i saw a frame would be overdoing it... I've seen virtual cockpit frames for your race sims for the computers that had more of a metal frame of a cockpit than this car had... I can and can't just imagine how Peterson's leg got mangled in his accident sitting in one of these contraptions... Sheesh... And this was years after Stewart started his bandwagon...



It didn't appear that safety was an afterthought... It just really appeared that the attitude was that safety was just not possible...

When I heard Schumacher's wife make the comment after MS's retirement of how lucky he was to come out of his career with just "a broken leg", it really takes looking at the history of the sport for any relative newcomers to appreciate her comment...

MS's record of six straight titles was hard to fathom just a half-century earlier when just SURVIVING six straight seasons was an accomplishment...



Unfortunately I still have yet to see a Clark/Fangio-era race, as the safety measures at that time were just too absent for me to enjoy watching...

And I still have yet to watch "Grand Prix"... Hell, even James Garner's insurers dropped him after seeing footage of situations he was putting himself into to make that film...


Eh, then again, considering just about everything has just happened in the last 20-25 years, maybe I should be amazed at the speed in which it all happened...

And to think F1 came up with frontal crash structures in the late 80s, but it took that horrible Indy 500 race for CART to adopt this idea...

again: "are they trying to kill us?"


FWIW - I plan to read the books...

[Locai]

Well, I didn't get the book for Christmas. But, I did get "Grand Prix" on DVD. I haven't had time yet to watch it, though.

I guess I'll just have to buy the book for myself. Glad to here that it's as good as I'd hoped.

[RDM]

Originally posted by Tolyngee

MS's record of six straight titles was hard to fathom just a half-century earlier when just SURVIVING six straight seasons was an accomplishment...

Good post and some interesting points raised, so please forgive me for being pedantic about one small point....

Schumacher achieved many fine things in his career, but 6 straight titles isn't one of them, to the best of my knowledge.

[Tolyngee]

Originally posted by RDM

Good post and some interesting points raised, so please forgive me for being pedantic about one small point....

Schumacher achieved many fine things in his career, but 6 straight titles isn't one of them, to the best of my knowledge.

Oops, sorry, yes you are right, so sorry...

But, Jackie seemed to suggest that F1 wants to deny and ignore the truths about their history...

So, in the spirit of F1 of old, I decided to make up some history of my own!

But, yeah, watching those DVDs of old F1 seasons upset me...

Watching the 70s decade, it was not unusual for coverage of the next round to start with "sadly, so-and-so would not take part in this round, as they had perished in an accident in a non-F1 race just the weekend before (or a testing session, etc...)"

And at the beginning of each season, they went through the names who had been there the previous season that didn't live to see this season...

But I now wonder if part of the "the only reason to watch a race if for the crashes" attitude is somewhat a result of what I saw in an era of racing that I was ignorant of when I began my love of the sport...

But auto racing is about the only sport I truly "get"... College basketball is my #2 sport... But throw me a basketball, and in 10 minutes, I'd rather go watch paint dry than dribble and shoot that damn ball anymore... Load up a race sim, and tell me to improve my hot lap on a single track? With palms sweating and heart pounding, I can keep myself completely focused on such a goal for, well frankly, a lot longer than I would be proud to admit to...

Stupid thing is, I could almost care less about cars, never been a car freak... And, thanks to inner ear problems as a child (I couldn't ride a bike 'til almost a teenager, my balance was affected...), and the vertigo I deal with now, I know that even if money and all other obstacles were absent, I still physically would never be able to attempt at least one of the things in life that for whatever reason I do have a passion for...

My brother still finds it to be the goofiest thing: load up a sim, I can't tell you a damn thing about the current car, if I can even tell you what car it even is. But my brother knows the odds are I can beat your lap time...

Tangents aside, I must admit I think I picked the perfect time to become an F1 fan: safety was greatly improved, and the personalities in F1 was arguably the best ever: Piquet, Senna, Prost, Mansell, Berger... And oh the controversies!

(altho these F1 season review DVDs kind of suck... Some races they utterly SKIP any coverage of... They go from round 4 to round 6... You are suggesting absolutely NOTHING worthy of mention happened in that race?)

[BorderReiver]

They reckoned if you competed in five consecutive years of top level Motorsport (F1, F2, USAC etc.) between 1965 and 1975 you had a better than evens chance of being dead.

Sobering.

[Tolyngee]

Originally posted by BorderReiver
They reckoned if you competed in five consecutive years of top level Motorsport (F1, F2, USAC etc.) between 1965 and 1975 you had a better than evens chance of being dead.

Sobering.

Interview in 1980 with the director of 'Grand Prix' made in 1966:

In a 1980 interview given by director John Frankenheimer, there were 32 professional racing drivers used in the filming including Lorenzo Bandini, who coached the actors with the driving. The following year, nine of the film's drivers (including Bandini) had been killed in racing accidents. By 1980, 21 of the 32 drivers used in the film were killed in racing accidents.

2/3rds of 'em...

Now, let's go back 14 yrs from today, the 1992 season, Mansell's season... Prost didn't drive that yr, but we can include him... And the likes of Patrese, Senna, Schumacher, Brundle, Alesi, Berger, etc etc... Wow, even Michael Andretti! (yeah, 93 so what...)

Now image today we had to say that a dozen or so of them had now perished in auto racing accidents, and that a half-dozen perished within 92-93...

Just how different would the sport be? Would the sport have survived?

I'm having trouble thinking we could still find it acceptable...

Didn't someone die at some charity race or something at Silverstone in the last few yrs?

Or is that just the Newey crash I am thinking of?

[BorderReiver]

Well, Motorsport still takes it toll every year. I don't think anyone can stop it.

I was competing a Cadwell some years ago now when there was a double fatality in that weekend's Cobra race, if I remember rightly that must've been around 2001. That was a massive shock.

I do remember a fatal accident at a historics race at Silverstone now you mention it. The guy was driving a Lotus 18 I think, went off at Club. Actually, the more I recall I think the driver suffered a fatal heart attack at the wheel.

Then there was that terrible accident at the Festival of speed a few years ago, and of course Rallying and the IRL have suffered badly in the last few years.

You can never, ever make it safe at any level, from clubman to F1 (perversly I'd say Formula One is vastly safer than Club racing these days) but we are very, very fortunate to be in a vastly, infinately, better situation than we were thirty years ago right across the board.

It's just a sad fact that it often takes the death or serious maiming of someone before appropriate measures can be brought in to help with that sort of accident. We can only be wise after the fact and predicition is never an exact science.

[Tolyngee]

Originally posted by BorderReiver
Well, Motorsport still takes it toll every year. I don't think anyone can stop it.

It's just a sad fact that it often takes the death or serious maiming of someone before appropriate measures can be brought in to help with that sort of accident. We can only be wise after the fact and predicition is never an exact science.

But, I already gave one account of a known issue that was foreseen many years in advance that wasn't acted upon in CART until it caused too many injuries: lack of front crash structure. You seem to suggest these things are a "whowouldathunkit?" thing. So, if you actually think everyone is going to buy your final sentence, you should really try your hand at politics...

(there's a lot of walls in CART... an attitude of "well, don't run into the f-ing wall, idiot" can't last forever...)

Anyway, you might have missed what my point was.

I am not saying "could we find any death acceptable anymore?"

I was asking "is a 66% fatality rate acceptable today?"

I really don't think it is. I can guarantee you Bernie saw the writing on the wall in 1994. It's a big business, with big bucks, and big viewership. He knew the statistics of old where if that ever crept back you could lose at minimum one driver every half-dozen races. At minimum losing three drivers a year? People are going to tune out...

And, yes, I do believe that if that fatality rate was here today, more countries would start considering bans on auto racing.

Although I can think of a few criteria that should be met for any racing event that isn't necessarily the case:

1) any race should be conducted in an area that can be considered a "controlled environment." If you can't keep (to the best of your ability) the actual track under some level of control, it's not wise to race there. F1 seems to have this pretty well under control. (I won't go into detail on what this all means, as I've been a racing fan for 20 yrs, and you sound like you have even more experience than me in being a fan, so we both should already be clear without boring details...)

(Obviously, rallying is on the exact opposite end of this... I couldn't disagree more with this form of motor racing... to say more could only serve to offend...)

2) RUN-OFF AREAS... I cannot believe I have listened to people who actually are involved in the sport complain that there's too much attempt at creating safer race tracks going on today... That drivers would be less likely to push their car past its limit and maybe go a bit past the curbs in an off if they knew basically every track was like Monaco with zero run-off... You'll never stop mechanical failure anyway, so run-off is needed... While there are examples (JV's wheel coming off at Japan and getting close to flying into the stands) that show that only keeping fans from the race site will ever keep them from becoming involved, I do think there are examples of where fans are too close to the action... I'm not certain there should be any fans in the pitlane area...

(sorry, but yeah, in rallying, the f-ing morons actually stand on the track and act shocked when a car actually runs into them... drivers do make errors, and I am sure the error rate increases when they arrive at a corner AND SOMETHING IS THERE TO GREET THEM...)

Also, in case you are wondering: I am not a fan of oval racing... I used to tape very IRL/CART race, but in the last few yrs at least I have stopped taping the ovals... Sometimes I don't bother to watch... No, I don't think it's too unsafe at all, I just don't like it, and MS has a valid point that he wouldn't consider that racing as the safety level does decrease with an oval set-up... Besides, once I got into the sim stuff, i realized how boring going literally in circles actually is... But the likelihood of a wall/fence strike in oval racing is much higher... I hate the term lucky, but Kenny Brack seemed to have some luck on his side...

Eh, I think oval racing's mostly a USA thing anyway...

And actually, I am still somewhat surprised at what things people will race, and the surfaces they do them on... Water is such a variable that I know I wouldn't race on it... (eh, maybe I would in a submerged vehicle? Eh, then again, you strike something and spring a leak, you might be kissing your butt bye-bye... no thanks...)

But yeah, i probably just seem like I am trying to be an ass by now, which isn't exactly my goal, but I guess if I really thought about it, I'm probably not a fan of a lot of the motor racing out there anyway...

F1 standards for tracks probably just ain't the way 90% of motor racing is conducted anyway... So comparing it probably isn't wise...


But, for all the Bernie bashing that goes on, maybe I am wrong, but I think it appears he has done a lot of good for the sport... You have got to have it be as safe as possible, otherwise you're going to lose business, if not just go out of business...


But, I certainly "get" the sport... the concentration level and rhythm it takes to control some of these vehicles at speed is something that can't be appreciated fully until you try it... Those that have a reaction to racing of "ugh, boring, just kill me now..." I'd like to take 'em all and sit 'em down in some sim (or even take 'em out to a go cart track, actually...), or even semi-sim (even trackmania nations, since it's free, damn that game's addicting...), and just tell 'em to run around the track for an hr, try to improve your laptimes, and actually GIVE IT AN ATTEMPT TO IMPROVE YOUR LAP TIMES... (ummm, actually, how easily I forget that some of the ideas behind racing actually seem to go against logic though.... simple example: it does seem initially go against common sense for the absolute newbie that to lower your lap time, you need to SLOW DOWN...)

If they still don't get it after an hr, I guess it is not for them. But I'd really like those who snort at racing a chance to appreciate how absorbing it really is...

Although unfortunately I have just learned to laugh at those who don't appreciate you have to be physically to operate some of these cars for long periods of time and be consisent... "I've had my car on the highway up to 140mph... I still got my beer belly..." try to explain even a tad about G forces and accel/braking/turning capabilities of whatever they drove compared to a racing car, and they admit, they don't see what i am getting at...


I'm just trying to explain this so you don't think I am just a complete ass towards motor racing... But I do believe if you want the masses to try and appreciate it, and run it as a business, fatalities have got to be as damn close to utterly unacceptable as you can make it... I have had people say that when you remove the danger, you remove the excitement... Well, I can't even be injured on my sims (well, I am sure we can state a dozen stupid things that could happen anywhere/anytime, but you know what i meant...), but I can sure tell you that I don't see what they mean... Then again, I can't appreciate the true adrenaline rush of actual racing, so maybe I don't get that...


Then again, maybe I am just a weirdo... I can still remember, even as recent as just 97-99 (for a few years I couldn't catch the races live...), but even years prior to that (88-93), being so excited for Sunday's race that I just got used to staying up all Saturday night, and not going to bed until after the race... Good God, maybe I am just a weirdo...

Lastly, I would kinda like to say: considering the enjoyment I get out of my sims, I really don't think the "they died doing what they loved" line is a complete crock at all... (altho I do have some doubts about Senna on that particular day...)

Actually, I swear Zanardi once cracked that one thing that made his accident more acceptable to him was that he was leading at the time (? I never watched the race, so i am not positive he was leading, but i swear I heard him make a crack like that...)

[BorderReiver]

What you're not getting Toly is that there is no "absolute" in safety. There is no "fix this and this sort of accident will stop". None. It is a constant battle betwen safety and performance.

Yes, Formula One made huge advances in structural technology in the mid to late 1980s, but only after several horrendous (and fatal) accidents in the early 1980s. The same can be said for CART where huge strides in structural integrity were made following Gordon Smiley's death in '82. The fact is though as safety technology increases, so does performance, and again you reach the level where the latter outstrips the former.

There have been death's in Formula One since those revisions of the 1980s and there have been deaths in CART/IRL too. It's just something you can't escape from. As performance increases so does the chance of an accident which is beyond the limits of the safety technology of the time and ultimately human survivability. It's an inevitable bi-product of any sort of motorsport.

I will guarentee you, with total confidence (sadly) that before this time next year we will have seen at least one RIP thread on this very forum, or have read an obituary in Autosport for someone killed in a race car. It genuinly can't be helped.

Now, you might ask, why don't we build race-cars with safety in mind before performance? Well we could, but you wouldn't get any serious racing driver to get into one of them. Racing drivers are, in my experience, ego-centric, selfish, bastards when it comes down to it (I know I am, and I'm crap). Certainly that's what they become when they get in the cockpit. If you weren't like that you could never hope to be successful.

I guarentee you, if you had gone up to Stan Fox on the grid before that start of Indy '95 (which I assume is the accident you've been referring to) and told him you could increase his frontal protection by 50% he'd have said "Great!", then when you told him it would add weight to the car and lead to impaired performance he'd have told you to **** off. The fact is motorsport is dangerous and everyone who spectates or competes should be aware of that (it's what is written on the back of your ticket afterall), and new dangers are only, sadly, highlighted when someone encounters one.

I can't think of a single safety development in the history of motorsport which wasn't sparked by an accident. Not one. Sure you can point to the risks and say "that might happen", but until it actually does the racing world as a whole is not going to impact it's performance for a "what if".

I remember seeing an interview with Eddie Cheever who was racing in F1 in the mid 80s. He said he was utterly livid when the ruling came in that driver's feet should be moved back behind the axle line, even after the accidents of Pironi, Paletti etc. He beleived that such a move would cock up the weight distribution of the car and affect his performance. THAT is what the sport it like, that is what everyone who watches it or takes part in it has to accept. If you want to watch motorsport without the element of risk, then you'll never, ever, be able to do that because it will never be free of it entirely.

No death in the cockpit is acceptable, but it is, ultimately, unavoidable.

[Andy Donovan]

The thing that gets me with motorsport safety is my non-motorsport following mates, who are convinced I 'only watch F1 for the crashes'.
I missed the truly dangerous years of motorsport as I started following F1 in about '92, but I've still seen people killed at the wheel on TV and in real life. As a result, like most people on this board I don't particularly like seeing big crashes as there's always that 'what if' feeling in the back of my mind. To have people sat next to me cheering when someone goes into a wall makes my blood run cold.
A good example was the downpour in Brazil in 2003 where people were aquaplaning off at turn 3. Cars were coming off the track and nearly hitting recovery vehicles at times, but my mates thought this was a great laugh. I guess one of the results of improved safety is people get complacent.

[Collombin]

Originally posted by BorderReiver
They reckoned if you competed in five consecutive years of top level Motorsport (F1, F2, USAC etc.) between 1965 and 1975 you had a better than evens chance of being dead.

I watched footage of the Milwaukee champ car race from 1955 recently, and noticed that of the top 12 qualifiers, 1 of them went on to quit the sport in one piece, 1 of them later suffered terrible career-ending injuries, and the other 10 were all killed in racing accidents

We do sometimes forget just how far we've come.

[Group B]