Some here may remember the Bobby Allison 1987 wreck at this track, where he almost got flung into the stands, which lead to horsepower-sapping restrictor plates. But plates may not be enough…
Carl Edwards was leading Brad Keselowski into the trioval on the final lap, when Keselowski made a move low, which Edwards blocked. This caused Carl to become airborne momentarily and then fly (with the “help” of the 3rd place car) into the catchfence in front of the grandstands. The car hits the wall, dissipating a goodly portion of its momentum, and then sails into the catchfence, which noticeably gives under the force before catapulting Edwards back onto the track. Several people were injured by flying debris.
If the car doesn’t hit the wall first, I doubt the fence would have been able to stop 2 tons of racecar traveling at c. 150 MPH. Dozens if not hundreds of people would have died; it would have been the end of motorsports as we know it (a similar instance at Le Mans in 1955, where 90 people perished, almost did kill motorsports). Now I enjoy motorsports myself and drive a number of racing sims, but sooner or later something awful is going to happen. But NASCAR (and the track owners, and the IRL) will just happily go on like nothing has happened. Yes it will cost them mucho dinero to reinforce the walls and fences at all the ovals in this country, but the cost of such an incident will be unprecedented.
They have been making the fences better ever since people started racing cars. People used to die in the crowd in Indy cars races every few years. The best solution would be to remove the first 30 or so rows at the track and add them to the top of the grandstand. It’s pretty hard to see from the lower seats at Talladega, so that would solve a couple of problems.
Very scary; equally so for Edwards, who mentioned following the race that it was the first time he’d been in a rollover crash in his racing career. I imagine Ryan Newman’s butt clenched a bit when Edward’s car landed in his windshield as well.
There were several very close calls over the course of the weekend, and that’s not even counting the two multi-car “Big One” pileups during the Cup race. During that event, Robby Gordon got pinballed head-on into the inside wall at about 190mph; it was fortunate he hit an area where the SAFER barrier was in place, or he might no longer be with us. Likewise, Matt Kenseth had a fairly spectacular endo in front of the stands during Saturday’s Nationwide series race.
NASCAR appears to be between a rock and a hard place regarding Daytona and Talledega. Despite the use of restrictor plates, and automatic roof flaps, the cars seem to have inched back up to speeds that will result in them tumbling if they get any air under them. As it is, with the plates as equalizers, they run in such bunched up packs that it is almost guaranteed that a huge, dozen-or-more-car pileup will occur during the course of the race. Right now, there seems to be no practical solution except abandoning the big tracks entirely, a step neither NASCAR or the general run of fans would find palatable in any way.