Cup Series: Gillette Fusion ProGlide 500 Racethread

**Mark in Oshawa** · 9th June 2010, 18:26

Originally Posted by 00steven

Your right, a couple trees through the windsheild wouldn't harm him.

The tree's wouldn't go through the windshield. The tree's you see on that back stretch are not going to stand up to 3400 lbs of race car tumbling into them...

**00steven** · 9th June 2010, 20:18

There are trees behond those trees.There is no reason for every racetrack not to have a catchfence. There was an indycar driver named Jeff Krosnoff who had a terrible mishap with a tree which resulted in fatality. It makes me shudder just thinking about it. I'm not saying anything like that will happen but, nothing can ever be safe enough. All they need is a simple fence for crying out loud!

**slorydn1** · 9th June 2010, 22:19

The reason there are no fences on the Long Pond straight is because there are no seats or rv parking areas back there.

The catch fencing at all the tracks are there for our safety and not the drivers safety. The safer-barrier equiped walls are there for the drivers safety.

Ask some and they wuld say higher walls would be much safer than the fencing (just look at what all the open nooks and crannys on a fence do to a race car unfortunate enough to hit it....an Indy car completey disintegrates into bite sized pieces, and a stock car really doesn't fair that much better).

Of course higher walls mean restricted visablity, so we won't ever see those where the fans are at.

And is it really necessary at Pocono?

Kasey hit the wall at the most severe angle possible, while being struck by a a second car, and failed to clear the existing wall. The track has been there since the early 70's and to my knowledge no one has ever cleared that wall. The existing wall did its job.

So the question is, do we, in this economy, expect the track to erect catch fencing to protect trees since its been shown that the fencing does nothing for the drivers safety?

**00steven** · 9th June 2010, 22:36

If Kahne's car caught fire and then flipped over the wall it would take the safety crew longer to get to him. There is an uproar right now in Indycar regarding Simona De Salvestro's incident. So if Pocono can't afford to keep the drivers safe,do they really deserve two race dates?

**edv** · 9th June 2010, 22:57

Originally Posted by 00steven

There are trees behond those trees.There is no reason for every racetrack not to have a catchfence. There was an indycar driver named Jeff Krosnoff who had a terrible mishap with a tree which resulted in fatality. It makes me shudder just thinking about it. I'm not saying anything like that will happen but, nothing can ever be safe enough. All they need is a simple fence for crying out loud!

Krosnoff never hit any tree. It was the catchfencing under a bridge at Toronto 13 yrs ago.

**00steven** · 9th June 2010, 23:51

[quote="edv"]Krosnoff never hit any tree. It was the catchfencing under a bridge at Toronto 13 yrs ago.[/quote

On July 14th,1996 with 3 laps to go in the Molsen Indy Toronto at Exibition Place Krosnoff died from injuries sustained in an accident. Krosnoff's car made wheel-to-wheel contact with the car of Stefan Johansson, sending it into the air, over a concrete barrier, and into the catch fencing lining the street course. The fence did not deflect the car enough to keep it from hitting a tree that was close to the track.

The violence of the accident left the car broken in half and sent the cockpit section back across the track. Even though the paramedics were there almost immediatley, Krosnoff was already dead after striking the tree.

Rest In Peace