Accident Investigations

Years ago I attended the Frank Hawley school. Just a few weeks before a alcohol class racer had been killed at Sears Point when the car ran off the end of the track during a burnout. I know next to nothing about the details. When I asked at Frank's school what happened you would have thought I had committed blasphemy. Now that is the problem- what happened? As a firefighter/paramedic I am associated with a considerable amount of death and injury in my line of work. Any time something significant happens there are investigations, not necessarily to fix blame but hopefully to prevent repeat accidents. I know that the NTSB investigates all aircraft accidents including the small private aircraft. After the investigations they publish a report periodically on the results of the investigations. Knowing what happened is half the battle towards preventing a reoccurence. I would never want to make light of, or blame anybody, but I do want to know what happened so I can learn from it so it doesn't happen to me. My proposal would be a comprehensive investigation into accidents so that we can prevent them and the knee jerk rules manufacturing that always seems to follow them. I have no problems with safety rules but lets make them with intelligence rather than emotions. These are just a few thoughts of mine, I welcome any discussion that can make racing safer. One death is way too many but if we can learn from it then maybe it won't have been in vain. Dave Germain

 

Dave, I'm in full agreement with you... emotions shouldn't be an issue when your in a sport were your risking your life every time you get in your dragster... I asked on the "RIP Eric" thread what caused his accident, and I think it was Will who asked for people to not talk about the accident... I respected Will's request (it is after all his site) and removed my question from the thread, but I don't see why trying to get to the bottom of this should ever be an issue.. I wasn't asking about Eric's injuries or any gory info, I was asking specifically about the car... If there was an issue with Eric's run, I feel everyone in the sport has the right to know if they need to change something on their car... There should be investigations in every crash that are available to the public... I would even go as far as to say they should record every run of every event (not just the pro categories) just in case something went wrong so we could implement changes... Bottom line, I'm with you 100%, emotions have no place when we are all risking our lives...
CJ Curtsinger

 

I agree with both of you. No blame is being argued, simply the facts are in question. It's my understanding that a tire blew at the big end which caused the crash. Eric was one hell of a racer and he should be remembered with the utmost respect. May God be with the entire Force family and crew during these tough times.

 

I know which incident you are talking about. For whatever reason, the throttle stayed open and the driver didn't or couldn't properly respond to it. What probably compounded the situation was, the guardwalls didn't extend the full length of the shutdown area, so the car left the racing surface.

The next morning, the guardwalls did extend the full length of the shutdown area.