IRL Safety Team = Epic Fail

[Easy Drifter]

They do have two. On road courses especially long ones more are needed. Many local/track teams are quite good.
I commented quite a bit in one of my regular columns in the Garage Blog on safety issues and not just on IC.
F1, NASCAR, ALMS, IC and Grand Am plus others had better take a good look at their procedures.
For some reason fires seem to be occurring more frequently and if anything magnesium gets going it is extremely difficult to extinguish.

[call_me_andrew]

These days fires are more likey to be oil related than fuel related, so I guess that's some sort of win.

[Easy Drifter]

Fire is fire. It is the thing most drivers fear the most. I know I did.
Today I would never drive with the lack of protection I and everyone else did in the dark ages.
When I started I drove in a Tee shirt and jeans!
In my last car my right knee rested against one of my aluminum fuel tanks slung outside the tube frame protected by the thin fibregass body. No bladder or foam.
One layer nomex suit and underwear. Nomex bandana and open face helmet. String back gloves and boxing boots. No full face helmets or multi layer suits then. No nomex gloves, balaclavas, socks or boots. The first year I wore nomex it was one of 26 suits in Canada!
Yes we were nuts but that was all there was.

[markabilly]

Please spare me "the other guys" argument. What they did in F-1 years ago is irrelevant the the discussion.

We are talking about the IRL.

Today Simona sat in a heavily damaged car for almost a minute and a half before the safety crew pulled up.
That is unacceptable for even a SCCA club race let alone what is suppose the premier series in North America.

Last year, when Massa crashed, there was a repetition of the same response, as repeated per this year's Waktins Glen....

different organizations for sure, but all due to the ones in charge, having their little rules in place, and having failed to learn the lessons of history....or common sense

Guess we all were spoiled by the CC safety crews....

[markabilly]

They do have two. On road courses especially long ones more are needed. Many local/track teams are quite good.
I commented quite a bit in one of my regular columns in the Garage Blog on safety issues and not just on IC.
F1, NASCAR, ALMS, IC and Grand Am plus others had better take a good look at their procedures.
For some reason fires seem to be occurring more frequently and if anything magnesium gets going it is extremely difficult to extinguish.

That was my point above

Fire is fire. It is the thing most drivers fear the most. I know I did.
Today I would never drive with the lack of protection I and everyone else did in the dark ages.
When I started I drove in a Tee shirt and jeans!
In my last car my right knee rested against one of my aluminum fuel tanks slung outside the tube frame protected by the thin fibregass body. No bladder or foam.
One layer nomex suit and underwear. Nomex bandana and open face helmet. String back gloves and boxing boots. No full face helmets or multi layer suits then. No nomex gloves, balaclavas, socks or boots. The first year I wore nomex it was one of 26 suits in Canada!
Yes we were nuts but that was all there was.

I think the current suits provide a false sense of safety, and one reason for the slow and inadequate responses.....and heat transfer can quickly cause serious burns...

[downtowndeco]

Some of you guys are ridiculous. You want the impossible. A first class traveling safety team on every corner so that the response time is less than 15 seconds in every situation. And if there is a fire less than 10 seconds.

Perhaps each car should pull a "Safety Trailer", complete with a two man fire crew. That might not be good enough either, if it's a serious crash, so perhaps a certified Dr. should be assigned to follow each car on the track in a special "Race Ambulance". One car, one ambulance. Sure it would increase the traffic on track but think of how short the response time would be!!

Look, if the IRL sends an ambulance out onto the track before the entire field is under control we could have a far more serious situation other than a car sitting alongside a barrier. A safety truck with it's crew sitting in the back could get rear ended at 175 mph by one of the race cars.

Complain complain complain. I swear to god I don't know what would bring some of you joy in life if you didn't have the IRL to kick around. : )

[garyshell]

Some of you guys are ridiculous. You want the impossible. A first class traveling safety team on every corner so that the response time is less than 15 seconds in every situation. And if there is a fire less than 10 seconds.

Perhaps each car should pull a "Safety Trailer", complete with a two man fire crew. That might not be good enough either, if it's a serious crash, so perhaps a certified Dr. should be assigned to follow each car on the track in a special "Race Ambulance". One car, one ambulance. Sure it would increase the traffic on track but think of how short the response time would be!!

Look, if the IRL sends an ambulance out onto the track before the entire field is under control we could have a far more serious situation other than a car sitting alongside a barrier. A safety truck with it's crew sitting in the back could get rear ended at 175 mph by one of the race cars.

Complain complain complain. I swear to god I don't know what would bring some of you joy in life if you didn't have the IRL to kick around. : )

Mr. Hyperbole is back.. no one is calling for that ridiculous scenario you paint. But what we ARE calling for is better response time.

As for having the field under control, that control does NOT have to require a safety/pace car. It is just idiotic to have to wait for the car to be dispatched and get the field behind it in an emergency when we have (or should have) all these corner works with this in their hands:



The extra minute(s) required for the safety car is/are RIDICULOUS.

Gary

[DBell]

Some of you guys are ridiculous. You want the impossible. A first class traveling safety team on every corner so that the response time is less than 15 seconds in every situation. And if there is a fire less than 10 seconds.

Perhaps each car should pull a "Safety Trailer", complete with a two man fire crew. That might not be good enough either, if it's a serious crash, so perhaps a certified Dr. should be assigned to follow each car on the track in a special "Race Ambulance". One car, one ambulance. Sure it would increase the traffic on track but think of how short the response time would be!!

Look, if the IRL sends an ambulance out onto the track before the entire field is under control we could have a far more serious situation other than a car sitting alongside a barrier. A safety truck with it's crew sitting in the back could get rear ended at 175 mph by one of the race cars.

Complain complain complain. I swear to god I don't know what would bring some of you joy in life if you didn't have the IRL to kick around. : )

Why is it everytime you post I'm reminded of Kevin Bacon in Animal House?

[Easy Drifter]

All F1 cars have warning lights that go on when the safety car is deployed. The drivers know instantly and cannot pass. It wouldn't take much with today's technolgy to then limit the revs they can use. There would need to be a few seconds delay on that to let any driver in mid corner get onto a straight.
There is no reason IC and other forms of racing could not use the same method.
I do not know why IC will not utilize local safety teams. All major permanent tracks have them.
They remind me of the old hidebound USAC. We did it this way in 1930 so it is good enough. Basically that was Frankie Del Roy USAC's chief tech man, one of those killed in the plane crash. Frankie had been a riding mechanic! Yes I did know him.

[Mark in Oshawa]

Some of you guys are ridiculous. You want the impossible. A first class traveling safety team on every corner so that the response time is less than 15 seconds in every situation. And if there is a fire less than 10 seconds.

Perhaps each car should pull a "Safety Trailer", complete with a two man fire crew. That might not be good enough either, if it's a serious crash, so perhaps a certified Dr. should be assigned to follow each car on the track in a special "Race Ambulance". One car, one ambulance. Sure it would increase the traffic on track but think of how short the response time would be!!

Look, if the IRL sends an ambulance out onto the track before the entire field is under control we could have a far more serious situation other than a car sitting alongside a barrier. A safety truck with it's crew sitting in the back could get rear ended at 175 mph by one of the race cars.

Complain complain complain. I swear to god I don't know what would bring some of you joy in life if you didn't have the IRL to kick around. : )

Deco, have you been around race tracks as something other than a spectator? Drifter and I have, as has Starter and a few others. WE know how local racing organizations (the ones The IRL is now spurning the help of) handle club racing and the like. Mosport, a 2.459 road course has 2 safety teams, one situated at the bottom of the track at Moss Corner and the other at S/F. I guarntee you that they would get to a burning car FASTER than the IRL guys seem to at places like the Glen, or god forbid, if they run at Road America. The way the IRL does it now, a car burning at Canada Corner of Road America would be ashes before they got their guys there.

The criticism's we have of the IRL are not only legitimate, but you can bet there are people in the paddock who are making similar ones.

The CART/CCWS safety teams set a standard and they were an expensive operation but they WORKED. Designed to hit the track from 2 to 3 locations, they arrived with the same guys week after week. All were firemen and/or paramedics and a doctor was with every truck. All the trucks were designed to bring everything required for every situation, and the crews trained. The fact is they were on the race track seconds after the Yellow flew. The drivers knew when the Yellow came out that the trucks would be rolling and watched what they were doing. It isn't rocket science. IF the DRIVERS know when the Yellow flies the safety trucks will also be going from a few locations, they will know to watch for them. Furthermore, CART used to radio to the crews where the incident was and where the truck was scrambled from. The drivers had ZERO reason to be surprised by the presence of a box on wheels with strobes all over it.

The fact is Deco, 15 seconds wouldn't be good enough if I was the guy in the car on fire and I was trapped.

No team can meet EVERY single situation perfectly. That said, the current IRL habit of getting the field under the pace car before scrambling crews is madness, and in the case of the burning car at Texas with young Simona in there, even when they got there they were clueless.

Deco, as usual, you see this as IRL bashing. It isn't....it is a kick right in their goolies because this is safety, and they are idiots if they cannot see the standard that was set years ago. The fact is, this is all about cost, and now saving face and making excuses, and it shouldn't be tolerated.