The sanctioning body leaders have to shoulder the blame 4/13/05
Her one-in-a million accident at Tulsa left me in shock, and when
I found out she wasn't wearing a head and neck restraining device
when she crashed my shock turned to just plain anger. First we lose
John I am damned mad at NHRA president Tom Compton, IHRA president Aaron Polburn and drag racing super-star John Force. Like it or not, each of those people bear, directly or indirectly, responsibility for the safety of the racers. Currently NASCAR, IMSA, and the drag racing series NDRA have made a "HANS" device mandatory. Yet the fastest racing series in the world still do not make the devices mandatory. For the life of me I just can't figure out why. The NHRA and IHRA will force the drivers of their professional classes to spend a thousand dollars or so on driving suits that will protect them from burning up in a fire and they will force them to rebuild their cars to meet stringent safety requirements, but they simply will not make a head and neck device mandatory. I guess that to the suits at NHRA and IHRA a broken neck is acceptable but burning to death isn't. The sanctioning bodies' lame excuse used to be that there might be some liability involved in requiring a driver to wear something that might save his or her life. Well, after placing a few calls before I wrote this column today, I discovered that there is now an SFI spec (38-1) for head and neck restraint devices and two brands that meet the spec: the HANS device from GM and a new one called the R-3 device from Safety Solutions. So now not only is there an SFI spec for the devices, but also more than one brand that meets that spec. If drag racing's major sanctioning bodies make the devices mandatory for cars going nine seconds or quicker, they won't appear to be giving one company a monopoly -- although they don't seem to have a problem doing that same thing when it comes to tires and race fuels. I find that a little odd, don't you? Mr. Compton and Mr. Polburn, you have the authority to make this safety device mandatory. How in God's name can you sleep at night? Knowing that there is a device that you could make your independent contractors and the people generate the money that pays your salary wear that could possibly save their lives in an accident, yet you don't make it mandatory? Are you afraid that you will lose some of the money that comes in the back gate because some idiot drivers will refuse to spend the money? A HANS device cost about $870. That is less money than it costs to buy a set of tires, a carburetor, or a transmission. None of which will save the life of a father, mother, son or a daughter. Then there are my friends John Force and John Medlen. Jay Braxton at HANS told me that John Force wore the device once and then refused to wear it again. Braxton tried to get John Medlen's son, Eric, to wear one but after trying it once he absolutely refused to wear one. Force's third driver, Bob Hight, doesn't wear one either. You know what I think? I think that because their boss and hero John Force doesn't wear one, they don't want to either. It's a macho thing. Ironically enough Force's daughter Ashley wears one of the devices. Good enough for her, John, but not for you and the rest of the boys? I watched young Eric Medlen last weekend at Houston. He had his suit and helmet on and he danced a little jig as he walked back to check his chutes before a lap. He was the happiest guy on the planet right then. His crew bolted him into the seat so tightly you couldn't slide a playing card in between his body and the seat. He wore a helmet that would stop a Mack truck, but his neck was "protected" by a foam donut device. If that young man is ever injured as a result of not being fully protected, that mental image will haunt me the rest of my life. It's time for John Force to be the leader that he is and John Medlen to do what any parent would do and protect the ones they love even if they have to force the issue, because evidently drag racing's sanctioning bodies aren't going to. History has proven that all drivers of race cars think they are bullet-proof and only adhere to safety standards when forced. IHRA and NHRA officials, do your job! Force the drivers to be as safe as humanly possible in racecars that frequently go over 200 or 300 mph on tracks with unforgiving concrete barriers. It's time for those in charge to step up and do the right thing and, if they don't, the racers and families should hold the sanctioning bodies personally responsible. At Houston last weekend there was a moment of silence and a prayer for Shelly Howard. I saw lots of Top Alcohol dragsters and other cars with tributes to Shelly Howard on the cars. I also noticed that many of those drivers weren't wearing any kind of head and neck restraint. I say, instead of a meaningless decal on the side of a racecar,
if those of us in this sport really want to honor Shelly Howard's
memory, you'll make sure your driver is using ALL of the safety
equipment available to them. You owe it to them and to yourself.
Please, I'm begging you. |
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y stomach has been churning since I heard the tragic news about
the death of Shelly Howard and her son during a testing session
at Tulsa. I first met Shelly when my racing partner and friend,
Dave Koehler, and I were racing our dragster in the old AHRA's Top
Comp division. Shelly had a rear-motored dragster then and I think
she was part of a group of Oklahoma racers that raced Top Comp cars
at the track. We weren't great friends or anything, but we knew
each other and I followed her career from the Top Comp days through
to her TAD career. 
