tagged 
Indycar, JPM, NASCAR, Track Safety
Indycar, JPM, NASCAR, Track Safety Track Safety
Tuesday, September 17, 2013 at 10:05AM You may wonder why I prattle on about track safety here in the US. Here is a photo of an incident at what is supposed to be one of our top tracks, owned by the largest track owner in the world.
;)
The photographer suffered three broken ribs, three broken bones in his upper left arm along with two puncture wounds in his arm from the breaks, a small “brain bleed,” and multiple cuts and abrasions. Lucky to be alive. Not much in this photo is correct.
Meanwhile, NASCAR has made up new rules to prevent a recurrence of the "race" at Richmond, including the need for drivers to race at 100%. 100% of what? If a driver is leading but in fuel saving mode, is he disqualified? And then we had the Chicago farce. After sitting around for 5+ hours most of the few spectators that were there had gone home. So what did we do once they actually put cars on the track? Went to a pit stop under yellow. Why not start the race and let them take their chances with a green flag stop? The TV guys were even better, no sooner had the pit stops finished they went to an ad! At that point I turned off, as I suspect both the other viewers did too.
So JPM to Penske in IRL. It always struck me as odd that Ganassi sacked JPM from the NASCAR team and then suggested he might like him in his Indycar. Why not just transfer him? No wonder JPM said yes please to Roger. Should be interesting to see him next year, might liven up the racing.
No surprise that Baltimore is not back next year. Good riddance, awful track, and how they could say they had a larger crowd this year is beyond even most promoters imagination.
Kimi to Ferrari, you read it here.
Reader Comments (2)
As a relative novice to track design let me start with:
-only 1 row of tyres
-tyres stacked higher than barrier
-barrier looks very under designed (looks 50yrs old), should be higher?
-tyres look stacked in any old manner with seemingly little tethering. The rubber stapled to them is visibly coming apart before impact.
-catch fencing?
-No sand traps?
Whats your critiques on design flaws?
BTW Watkins Glen?
Also on Raikkonen to Ferrari, seems strange to me when they paid some 90mil to get rid of him for Alonso a few years back. Definitely short term thinking and how helpful will he be with Alonso? Just doesn't make any sense to me.
Being a Ferrari boy I would have loved to see Kobayashi being promoted seeing as he is just a young Raikkonen anyway. Makes better sense with regards to the Asian market as well.
Then again as exhibited in the above photo, most decisions in the racing world these days don't seem to make any sense.
Sorry for the late response, been traveling. Yes Watkins Glen and you are correct on the flaws. Catch fencing may not have been required if no spectators in that area.