Swing for the Fences!

Making one of the more remarkable images of Sunday afternoon, Carl Edwards' #99 flipped off the nose of Ryan Newman's car and into the track's crash fence on the final lap of the Aaron's 499 at Talladega.

For some reason, it's not nearly as surprising to me to see an IndyCar or F1 car flip because they look small, light, and fragile. A NASCAR stocker, especially when it goes airborne at a place like Daytona or Talladega, looks like a 3-year-old picked up a matchbox car and threw it. There's a surrealism to seeing a sort-of-normal-looking car flipping through the air under control of nothing but the wind that is very hard to describe -- until the surreal grace of it turns into the violence of a racing accident, that is.

The violence of the contact was the story of the race, in spite of the rookie winner and the two earlier large wrecks. Edwards' car tore out a decent bit of the crash fencing, spewing bits of debris into the crowd and injuring eight fans. The key thing here is that, in spite of being hit by a 3,500-pound car, the fence did its job and the car landed on the track.

There were two aspects of the reaction to the accident that seem to be typical of NASCAR these days. First of all, there was complaining of the highest caliber. It's always understandable in the aftermath of an incident such as this that there will be comments on the safety of the sport. Tony Stewart has something to say after every race about the safety of the tires or cars or other drivers on the track. Anyone who is in an accident has something to say about the other guy. It's just natural.

The other thing typical of NASCAR that came out of this, notably from Carl Edwards himself, was ignorance of history. Edwards, citing the pack racing and speed of restrictor plate racing, says the following: "We're going to keep doing this until someone is killed." Edwards obviously doesn't know the incident that brought about the use of restrictor plates: Bobby Allison's wreck in 1987. Doesn't that look familiar? It's about 20 mph faster, and a little further down the track, but it looks a lot like exactly what Edwards did yesterday. Besides, it wasn't plate racing that caused the wreck, it was Edwards trying to throw a block and spinning out. Not only is he ignoring history, but he's trying to pass blame for the incident onto someone else. Claaasssssy.

Now, we also have to give some credit to the fence that tops the retaining wall around Talladega and many other racetracks around the nation. Back in the early days of motorsport, spectators would die as cars came off the track and into the crowd. Fences became the norm into the '40's and the fans have been grateful ever since. In IndyCar racing, the most notable incident has to be Salt Walther's flip into the fence at the start of the 1973 500-Mile Race.
Walther's car exploded on impact, showering fuel into the grandstands on the front stretch. Luckily, the fuel didn't ignite until the car was pinwheeling down the front stretch, or there may have been a Le Mans 1955-esque disaster. In the Walther situation, though, the fence kept more substantial pieces of debris (say, a whole car) from finding its way into into the crowd.

In fact, catch fences are almost too strong these days. On TV, the fence at Indianapolis looks like...well, a fence. In person, it is a tangle of big, steel cables and giant posts that will stop anything that comes anywhere near it. Tony Renna's car was shattered and he was killed when his car hit the Speedway's catch fence in a tire test in 2003. At Texas, Kenny Brack's car was annihilated when it ran into the fencing in 2003, and Ryan Briscoe had a similar experience at Chicago in 2005. Still, it must be noted that nothing but splinters of carbon fiber went past the fence, even though there weren't spectators at the site of either one. All substantial pieces of car were kept within the bounds of the competition.

Okay, there was no particular message or complaint to this post. I just wanted to comment on safety fences and the fact that they, y'know, protect the fans. I love 'em and they give me the confidence to sit in the lower sections of the B Stand when the 11 rows of 3 come flying down the stretch for the start of the 500-Mile Race.