Arguably, what happened at Talladega in 2009 may have saved lives at Daytona International Speedway on Saturday afternoon.
Nearly four years ago, Carl Edwards’ Ford was launched into the catch fence at Talladega in a last-lap crash, and debris from that incident injured eight fans in the front grandstand.
In Saturday’s DRIVE4COPD Nationwide Series race at Daytona, a last-lap wreck similar in character to the crash at Talladega sent debris and a tire with suspension parts still attached from Kyle Larson’s car into the crowd and the engine and suspension parts into a gate in the fencing at the base of the stands.
The engine and the majority of the front suspension came to rest at the edge of a walkway between the front row seats and the track.
Though the number of fans who sustained injuries from the last-lap wreck at Daytona was somewhat was difficult to pin down, Daytona International Speedway president Joie Chitwood III reiterated to reporters Sunday morning that 14 people had been transported to from the track to medical facilities and another 14 treated and released on site.
Halifax Health Medical Center spokesperson Byron Cogdell told the NASCAR Wire Service that seven patients had been admitted to that facility for injuries attributable to debris from the wreck. Two patients were injured critically, an adult and a minor.
Late Saturday night, those two patients were upgraded from critical, and all injured spectators admitted to Halifax were listed as stable. As of 10 a.m., Sunday morning, the remaining five spectators injured by debris from the wreck had been released from Halifax. In addition, six patients taken to Halifax Health Medical Center of Port Orange, Fla., have been treated and released.
Daytona’s reaction to the 2009 wreck at Talladega may have prevented more extensive injuries. Following Edwards’ collision with the frontstretch fence at Talladega, Daytona replaced its fencing, raising the height from 14 to 22 feet across the frontstretch.
“Following the 2009 Carl Edwards incident at Talladega, we brought in a structural engineering firm to review all our safety fencing,” Chitwood said. “We actually took every recommendation they made, and we actually installed new fencing at Daytona International Speedway prior to the 2010 season.
“So we felt like we had done everything as it relates to protocol in making sure we were prepared for yesterday’s event.”
The accident began as Edwards’ had at Talladega, with one driver making a move and another trying to block it. In the case of Saturday’s Nationwide race, Regan Smith was leading off the final corner, with Brad Keselowski pushing him.
As Keselowski moved to the outside to attempt a winning pass, Smith steered up the track to block his progress. Contact between the cars turned Smith’s Chevrolet sideways, and cars behind him attempted to dodge the wreck.
Larson’s car nosed hard into the side of Keselowski’s Ford, pinning Keselowski’s car along the frontstretch wall. The impact lifted Larson’s car off the pavement. At virtually the same instant, Brian Scott’s Chevrolet slammed into Larson’s car, spinning it upward toward the fence.
Thankfully, as the front clip of Larson’s car sheared off from the impact, the fence contained most of the wreck and stopped the engine from reaching the crowd.
Track personnel worked long into the night to repair the fencing in time for Sunday’s Daytona 500. Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR senior vice present of racing operations, said the sanctioning body was satisfied with the quality of the work.
“As you heard Joie say this morning, we worked closely with the race track,” O’Donnell told reporters in the Sprint Cup garage Sunday morning. “We’re confident with the repairs put in place. It’ll be an ongoing process for us with the race track. We have an R&D center up in Concord, North Carolina, that specializes in looking at things like that.”
O’Donnell said it’s premature to talk about specific courses of action, but NASCAR plans to conduct a thorough analysis of Larson’s car.
“We’ll look at every piece, what came off, what didn’t, what held, and we’ll review the film of where it hit and just look at what, if anything, we can do — every aspect of that car will be looked at,” O’Donnell said.
“I think, for the most part, the car held up. The tethers (that hold the wheels) held up. When a car gets into the fence, that’s something we have to take back, analyze everything we can. We’ll do just that, and the process has started.”
One source of concern is the wheel assembly that flew into the grandstand.
“The tethers did hold, but the challenge is that piece obviously got away when it hit the fence,” O’Donnell said. “That’s something, again, we can learn. The tethers came from an incident where we learned with a tire going and escaping from the cars. We implemented tethers.
“Now we’ve got to take another look and say, ‘Hey, is that the best practice, or is there more that we can do?'”
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