A Safer Routine

[Spyphish]

Try a hemi shootout. Starter waving for a burnout as the starting pair are underway. I sit, he waves again. I just point forward and make a "parting of the red sea" wave as the team watching the ongoing race are all over the starting line. Guess thats why I am a slow stager (and racer). Phish

[Terry Cain]

Doesn't have much to do with NHRA racing but what gets my goat are the Street Outlaw cars on TV. People all over the starting line and a flagman between 2 2000 hp cars that are racing on a "no Prep" street that at arms drop can go anyway they want. That's a mess. Hope no one ever gets hurt but really don't see how it won't happen.

[6130]

Originally Posted by Terry Cain

Doesn't have much to do with NHRA racing but what gets my goat are the Street Outlaw cars on TV. People all over the starting line and a flagman between 2 2000 hp cars that are racing on a "no Prep" street that at arms drop can go anyway they want. That's a mess. Hope no one ever gets hurt but really don't see how it won't happen.

Those same people do the same crap at actual drag strips. Looks like about 70% of them are just there to place bets...

[BG56]

Originally Posted by 6130

Those same people do the same crap at actual drag strips. Looks like about 70% of them are just there to place bets...

I've seen a couple of these maybe 'not too experienced' racers take off in reverse. With all those bodies up close and personal.

[Adger Smith]

This sport is dangerous
Pretty sure anyone that has been around auto racing a while has a list, long or short, of friends or family that have been killed or hurt.

[6130]

Originally Posted by Adger Smith

This sport is dangerous
Pretty sure anyone that has been around auto racing a while has a list, long or short, of friends or family that have been killed or hurt.

Ernest Hemingway said that there are only three sports- motor racing, mountaineering, and bullfighting, the rest are merely games. His point, is that it's not a sport if it doesn't have the very real and immediate potential to kill you.

I am absolutely not a daredevil, but I happen to have quite a bit of experience with managing danger. I am a retired cop, retired by an injury in the line of duty. I have been shot, stabbed, and attacked by pitbulls. I have raced cars and motorcycles in multiple motorsports disciplines, sometimes at speeds in excess of 200 mph. My wife and I have traveled all over the world, to experience the world's most dangerous race courses.

Drag racing is certainly a sport, but it is by far the safest motorsport that I have ever participated in, as it well should be- we're just going in a straight line, in separate lanes, for no more than 1,320 feet. It is a sport where M/SA stockers with top speeds of around 100 mph or so, are required to have roll bars and SFI spec 16.1 harnesses. My last motorcycle did 104 mph just in first gear, and I was protected by a millimeter or so of cow hide, on a circuit with corners and a bunch of other racers, but no lanes.

The most dangerous motorsport we have ever experienced, is the Isle Of Man TT. The big bikes are capable of about 210 mph on two-lane country roads lined with stone cottages, and the riders are coming back in with paint scrapes on their shoulders and helmets. Everything that can be done to make it safer, is done. But still about 250 people have been killed there over the years. Five people were killed during the two weeks we were there. We had three near-misses ourselves, just on the last day of racing.

I guess my point is, that motorsport has dangers, but we should manage those dangers as best we can, and a gaggle of goof-balls betting, trash-talking, and high-fiving on the starting line, is completely unnecessary.