7/8/05

SLIPPING OVER THE EDGE

Re: The Julie Russell letter or Mark Donohue Redux.

According to NHRA Today Julie Russell plans to file suit against Goodyear in the next 7-10 business days seeking compensation for Darrell's death. She would not discuss it with the NHRA Today crew but they speculate the monetary demand will be somewhere between 3 to 7 million dollars.

While my heart (and those of thousands of others) goes out to Julie Russell, just what sort of profession did she think her husband had chosen? While we can debate without end what more should have been done about the tire situation, and when it could have been done, the bottom line is racecar driving is an inherently risky profession.

During his divorce Jeff Gordon even quoted that as justification for keeping more money and property.

Racers push the envelope. It's part of the job to find the extra edge. They push their parts suppliers to do the same. Occasionally someone slips over the edge. It happens much less than it used to.

Maybe Michelin (forget about F1 politics for a second) won't look so dumb now.

Kevin Goldsberry
Vallejo, CA

LAWYERS GET THE BOTTOM LINE

The lawyers will get it down to $3-5 million with lots of profits for the lawyers, and then call it a day. If they don't have a legal circus act then the paid liars, aka lawyers, don't get a piece of the pie.

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Personally I do NOT believe you should be able to sue a parts supplier unless you can prove they were negligent. I'm NOT saying Goodyear was or was not negligent because I don't and most folks don't have the scientific data to make a case either way. T/F tire failures have been documented but what was the root cause of those failures?

The absurd Ford Explorer/Firestone deal illustrates what can happen when paid liars get involved. There is good reason to believe few defective Firestone tires ever shipped and that the majority of failures resulted from lack of maintenance and road hazards such as driving into curbs, under-inflation, etc. Yet Ford and Firestone paid through the nose and the only ones who benefited were the lawyers.

And that's the rest of the story.

Randy Hubbard

MONOPOLY MEANS ONLY ONE TO BLAME

Burk's editorial is 100% correct. Just one detail is not being mentioned. The NHRA handed Goodyear a monopoly on pro tires. They took any choice away from crew chiefs owners and drivers. Seems to me this leaves the tire company and NHRA with no defense.

Norman Hechtkoff