Danica, is the reward worth the risk?

So Danica wants to drive her NASCAR Nationwide Series car in Saturdays race at Daytona now that she has a little experience from her time in the ARCA event last weekend?

Good for her… especially since now she has a little confidence, even after her wild slide through the infield grass on the front stretch.

With all that metal around her (that she’s not used to) compared to the Indy cars she drove before, getting hurt is probably the last thing on her mind. After all, the NASCAR race cars are among the safest of all motor sports vehicles.

But the reality is, injury is still a possibility even with all the safety features that have developed over years and years of research and development. In the photo above, Dario Franchitti was injured on lap 10 when he cut a tire, hit the wall, spun down to the apron and was hit by Larry Gunselman. Franchitti suffered a broken ankle and contusions during the Aaron’s 312 race at Talladega. Gunselman t-boned Franchitti’s car in the door at full speed while he sat there helplessly watching the car come at him full bore.

Looking closely at the photo, you can see the roll bars in the door are laying way past where the seat would normally sit and he’s lucky he didn’t receive more broken bones in the upper torso as well. The integrity of the door compartment gave way to the force of Gunselman’s front end and was a real concern for the NASCAR officials that investigated the accident. His car was transferred to NASCAR’s R&D center for evaluation and the decision was made to put a plate in the door section for added support and safety for this area of all the Nationwide Series race cars.

After Dale Earnhardt, Sr. was killed in a racing accident on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500, NASCAR rules for safety were mandatory rather than suggested. Thanks to the added safety at tracks, like the safer barriers installed along outside walls of the race track, no driver has been killed on the track since 2002 in any of the three major series. When driver Jeff Gordon was injured hitting the inside wall in the 2008 racing season, safer barriers were installed on the inside walls of some tracks. Developed specifically to help protect drivers during accidents, Steel and Foam Energy Reduction (SAFER) barriers consist of rectangular steel tubes backed by foam blocks that are installed in front of a track’s traditional cement retaining walls. When a car meets the wall at high speeds, the SAFER wall assists in absorbing the energy of the impact. This helps reduce the impact forced upon the driver.

NASCAR is committed to safety and uses a number of technical and procedural systems to keep the sport as safe as possible. Many of the technical safety initiatives in NASCAR take place at the NASCAR Research & Development Center in North Carolina, where new technologies are researched and tested on a regular basis. But some times things just ‘happen’ that were not anticipated which requires new rules to be implemented.

But in the case of the Francheitti accident, he was sitting on the inside of the track, away from the wall, and was hit broadside while sitting still. In past NASCAR history, accidents like this have caused many injuries that just can’t be avoided. The only way to help is with more structural reinforcement in the driver compartment to make the driver as safe as possible.