NASCAR Then and Now - Ben White [21]
By the late 1980s, Winston Cup cars were reaching speeds of well over 200 miles per hour at superspeedways such as Daytona and Talladega. The dangers of that kind of velocity became all too apparent when Bobby Allison blew a tire at Talladega, causing his car to spin, fly through the air, and slam into the catch fencing, injuring several spectators. To slow the cars down on the big tracks, NASCAR mandated that cars run with carburetor restrictor plates. The plates have brought the speeds down to a more manageable 190 miles per hour, but they also make the cars very equal, resulting in the vehicles bunching together in large packs. This can make for exciting, nail-biting racing, but so many cars traveling so close together at the same speeds almost inevitably leads to multi-car accidents. Here Kyle Busch leads the six-wide (!) field at the April 2009 Talladega Sprint Cup race
The larger ovals let drivers keep the pedal to the floor for most—sometimes all—of the lap. This allows the cars to string out a bit, especially on long green flag runs. But thanks to the wonders of the draft—the vacuum effect created by a leading car punching a hole in the air, helping to carry the trailing cars along—the leader can never feel too safe. Especially when a caution can come out at any time to bunch up the field again. Here Cale Yarborough leads the pack on his way to victory at the 1977 Daytona 500.
Impact!
Bill France’s original vision of Strictly Stock meant just that: stock machines right off the dealership lot. For a few hundred bucks, just about any wannabe race driver could try his hand at wheeling his car on dirt. More often than not, however, those dreams of glory turned upside down after a blown tire or broken tie-rod sent the family sedan tumbling. While the pastime has never been safe, the dangers were kept in check back then by the fact that the Strictly Stock cars were relatively slow by today’s standards.
As the wreckage piled up, the first order of business was to find a way to reinforce the somewhat flimsy tops of the cars so they wouldn’t collapse on the driver. This was done with roll bars installed inside the cars to reinforce the tops. These and other safety improvements meant the cars were no longer Strictly Stock, but at least they weren’t death traps.
Through the decades, NASCAR stock cars have steadily evolved, reaching speeds that would have seemed like science fiction to the drivers of old. Safety has steadily evolved along with the speeds, sometimes from a proactive approach, sometimes through tragedy. Today’s Sprint Cup machines are designed with the most up-to-date safety features available. Recent years have witnessed horrific-looking rollover crashes, with cars coming to rest in mangled heaps after repeated mid-air somersaults. Yet drivers have continued to emerge from the wreckage virtually unscathed, thanks to more than 60 years of safety innovation. Here’s hoping the trend continues for another 60 years.
Johnny Beauchamp’s No. 73 takes a ride over the guardrail during the qualifying race for the 1961 Daytona 500. Beauchamp had locked up with Lee Petty, sending both over the guardrail. Petty was severely injured in the crash and was forced to end his racing career.
What at first looked to be a tragedy turned out to be a miracle. Legendary Darlington Raceway photographer Tom Kirkland captured this incredible sequence at the 1958 Southern 500. Jack Smith loses control of his Chevrolet, which climbs the guardrail and disappears over the side of the track into the parking lot below. The final shot in the sequence shows the mangled car at rest surrounded by a crowd of onlookers. (Note the intrepid photographer standing in the scaffolding.) Miraculously, the car did not land on anyone, and Smith suffered only minor injuries.
Joey Logano (No. 20 Toyota) takes to the air after tangling with Reed Sorenson (No. 43 Dodge), Robby Gordon (No. 7 Toyota), and Martin Truex Jr. (No. 1 Chevrolet) at Dover International Speedway