OT: Worst NASCAR Crash Ever?

[AAFO_WSagar]

Read the headline and was very glad to hear that the driver walked away... Ironic, today's NASCAR car owner Michael Waltrup, *probably* IMHO, walked away from the worst crash I've ever watched. I can't remember the year, or the track, but it was one of the shorter NASCAR tracks. He lost it in a corner, managed to hit a spot on the outside wall that was the exact location of an exit gate, so the guard barrier had a "fault" in that spot, he hit the wall so hard that the barrier faulted enough that the car, literally seemed to fail at very weld in the chassis. Wound up a pile of smoking sticks with some body panels left intact. Michael's brother Darryl was doing doing "color" for the race and you could hear the shock in his voice, I'm sure he thought he had just seen his brother expire..

The very failure of all those welds, in the end, wound up being Michael's salvation...

Not sure why the media decided that the crash they are reporting as the "worst" ever, was, indeed that.. but..

Anyway.. Glad everyone walked away!

link to yahoo story http://sports.yahoo.com/nascar/blog/...n=nascar,75258

/

[RRMERLIN7]

Re: OT: Worst NASCAR Crash Ever?

My uncle is at the track and he said it looked 20x worse in person as it did on TV, he said u could hear it explode when it hit the wall, glad to see he is ok

it was at Texas Motor Speedway during qualifing yesterday, and it was Micheal McDowell that was the driver, only his 2nd Sprint cup qualifing attempt, Micheal Waltrip owns the car Kinda Ironic right??? Micheal waltrp was in the Bristol Crash in 1990 where his car was 1,000,000,000 pieces and now he owns a car and it was the worst crash since...

[MMPerk]

Re: OT: Worst NASCAR Crash Ever?

While not 'NASCAR', many years ago I remember Geoff Bodine's truck crash at Daytona in 2000. There is video of that at Youtube...

Also Ernie Irvan survived a couple of really nasty ones too...

This crash on Friday might not have been survivable just a few years ago.

Lonnie

[champ19]

Re: OT: Worst NASCAR Crash Ever?

Forty years of participating in and observing auto racing puts yesterday's crash a 3 on a scale of 10, 10 being the worst. I can relate from memory a number of massive survivable crashes that make yesterday's look like a ferris wheel ride: Dan Drinan's midget crash at the mile in Springfield comes immediately to mind. Someone actually called Dan's father and told him he had been killed. Stan Fox at Indy, it goes on and on. Wayne is correct, though. Michael Waltrip's crash at Bristol was unbelievable. There was literally almost nothing recognizable. The engine still looked like and engine, but that's about it. Darrell Waltrip admitted later that he thought he had witnessed his brother's death. Interestingly enough, about three years ago, I could be off on the date, almost the same exact thing occurred at exactly the same track in the place for the same reason. A Busch series car was practicing and hit the gate in the wall and was destroyed. The driver stepped straight out to the front of the car as there was nothing there. What is amazing is the amount of damage sustained by the cars at a half mile track where the impact speed is about a 100 miles an hour less than McDowell's crash yesterday. McDowell certainly had a hard hit, the hardest part being the initial impact. The SAFER barrier was deformed and certainly was a major factor in his walking away. All the other safety features built into the new car also really worked. As a general rule of thumb, the worst looking wrecks are often the least damaging to the driver. Before the Hans Device, the most bland appearing impact would often result in a fatal. How many of us expected Dale Earbhardt to walk away from his fatal? I sure did. He took a much worse ride at Talledega, got hurt, but didn't kill him.

I remember when sex was safe and racing was dangerous.

[t-dub]

Re: OT: Worst NASCAR Crash Ever?

Forty years of participating in and observing auto racing puts yesterday's crash a 3 on a scale of 10, 10 being the worst. I can relate from memory a number of massive survivable crashes that make yesterday's look like a ferris wheel ride: Dan Drinan's midget crash at the mile in Springfield comes immediately to mind. Someone actually called Dan's father and told him he had been killed. Stan Fox at Indy, it goes on and on. Wayne is correct, though. Michael Waltrip's crash at Bristol was unbelievable. There was literally almost nothing recognizable. The engine still looked like and engine, but that's about it. Darrell Waltrip admitted later that he thought he had witnessed his brother's death. Interestingly enough, about three years ago, I could be off on the date, almost the same exact thing occurred at exactly the same track in the place for the same reason. A Busch series car was practicing and hit the gate in the wall and was destroyed. The driver stepped straight out to the front of the car as there was nothing there. What is amazing is the amount of damage sustained by the cars at a half mile track where the impact speed is about a 100 miles an hour less than McDowell's crash yesterday. McDowell certainly had a hard hit, the hardest part being the initial impact. The SAFER barrier was deformed and certainly was a major factor in his walking away. All the other safety features built into the new car also really worked. As a general rule of thumb, the worst looking wrecks are often the least damaging to the driver. Before the Hans Device, the most bland appearing impact would often result in a fatal. How many of us expected Dale Earbhardt to walk away from his fatal? I sure did. He took a much worse ride at Talledega, got hurt, but didn't kill him.

I remember when sex was safe and racing was dangerous.

Great post Champ19! I couldn't have said it better. The Danny Drinan and late Stan Fox accidents are great examples. I also witnessed a horrific Supermodified crash at the 1997 "Copper World Classic" at the old Phoenix mile before the facelift. Off of turn two, between turn two and the dogleg, there used to be an opening in the outside wall used for infield and emergency vehicle access. At the start of the feature, Rex Beach went high through turns 1-2, got into the marbles, and caught the end of the wall with the right rear, (the beginning of the opening)which turned his car right, and head-on into the other end of the wall. It completely destroyed the car, and Rex sustained severe injury. As far as NASCAR though, I would have to agree on the 1990 Bristol wreck with Mikey Waltrip! That was quite spectacular........

[Bob]

Re: OT: Worst NASCAR Crash Ever?

I think these new cars are safer than last years cars, but they dont handle worth snot. And I think that the crash we are discussing is a direct result of these cars being terrible handling cars. I have read drivers comments that flatly state they are not able to drive them.
Already this year there have been two huge accidents, Jeff Gordon at Vegas and McDowell at Texas, both of these crashes were caused by the new car. These cars have no front suspension at race speeds. They also have very little downforce up front, the fronts just chatter and slide. This causes the teams, in prder to achieve some balance to set these cars up pretty darn loose. And thats what caused fridays crash and Gordons at Vegas.
Thses new cars are as boring as the IROC cars were. Thanks NASCAR, you screwed up a great series.

/rantoff

[Dash]

Re: OT: Worst NASCAR Crash Ever?

If you guys think this was one of the worst then you need to watch more NASCAR. This new car is extra safe, along with all the refinements on safety up until this point. A car at 200+ mph can flip repeatedly and the person inside be fine. It's just like they say with falling, it's the sudden stop that kills you. They're working on the wall barriers for the inside walls at these tracks, but this is still a very dangerous thing waiting to happen at most tracks. My vote for worst crashes are J.D. McDuffie's crash which was extremely brutal and killed him. He was an older gentleman, which probably didn't help his odds, but it was so bad that I think even a young man probably wouldn't have survived. The other driver jumped out and before he even looked in he was motioning the emergency vehicles. Now that is sad, but the cool thing is that he won a race, just the day before. On tv they went to break, when they came back they made the announcement. I'll never get used to that and you could tell that even they were stunned.

The other bad one has to be Bobby Allison's crash. Davey parked his car because he thought his dad had died. It did end his career. He had a very tough few years of it with both sons dying in accidents and like many of the older drivers, after retiring, was virtually broke. I talked to him a couple of years ago and he still loves it. He is doing much better now in all realms I think. One interesting thing to note. He said that he has been a long time pilot and introduced Rusty Wallace to flying. Rusty has a King Air and a small jet. Good pilots and better people.

[Bob]

Re: OT: Worst NASCAR Crash Ever?

Another snoozer of a race, finally the drivers are complaining.
Thanks NASCAR After 25 years of loyal viewing, I now have more time for fishing
It also means more time for honey do's :P

[shorebird]

Re: OT: Worst NASCAR Crash Ever?

I don't know about anyone else but NASCAR is letting the New York Ad agencies kill the sport. I can barely stand all the stupid and silly commercials featuring the drivers, it's way too much of them. Prepackaged just like the driving, the TV coverage and the whole NASCAR image. Boring.
Most of the drivers these days are just kids that were racing go-carts a few years prior. They haven't lived long enough to be interesting. Give me the days when dirt track racers like Cale Yarborough and Richard Petty let they're driving do most of the talking.

[Bob]

Re: OT: Worst NASCAR Crash Ever?

Back on topic, 2007 Jeff Gordon at Pocono turn 1

He is going 203 into turn 1, he hits the brakes, rt front brake rotor explodes. As he tries to make the corner his caqr does a 180 and he hits the wall at maybe 180mph with the driver side. The car got about 18" narrower.
Here is a short clip of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyMCZbYaasQ

[AKA HITMAN]

Re: OT: Worst NASCAR Crash Ever?

Sadler had a bad one a few years ago....the car went airborne and I believe flipped sideways a few times.