By Bob Ellis

New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon N.H. is the site of this week’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race.

Whenever NASCAR invades this track, a bit of melancholy sets in for me.

Don’t get me wrong, this track has good facilities for both drivers and fans.

It has had some pretty good finishes in the past and now that Bruton Smith owns it, I’m sure it is going to become “fan-tacular” like all of his other racing venues.

So why does this track sit uneasy with me? Two reasons — Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin Jr., both of whom lost their lives at this facility eight weeks apart in 2000 in separate incidents in almost exactly the same spot on the track.

Both of which are catalysts for raising the driver safety concerns in NASCAR, which continue even today.

Adam Petty was the first fourth generation driver in NASCAR. His father Kyle Petty, grandfather Richard Petty and great-grandfather Lee Petty are all winners in NASCAR’s premier series, and Adam seemed destined to do the same. He was only 19 years old when he died of head trauma as a result of hitting the turn 3 wall in practice.

Kenny Irwin Jr. was the Winston Cup rookie of the year in 1998, as well as the Craftsman Truck Series rookie of the year in 1997, and the National Midget Series Champion in 1996. Irwin had been racing since age 6, and was 30 years old when he died of multiple injuries, including significant head trauma as a result of hitting the wall on turn 3 during practice as well.

After the deaths of Petty and Irwin Jr., NASCAR drivers were uneasy and started to question the safety of the New Hampshire track.

But it would be Petty’s grandfather, seven-time Cup Champ Richard Petty who would provide a more insightful and poignant opinion.

“There ain’t nothing the matter with the race track,” Petty said. “These guys run those things 200 m.p.h. It’s circumstances with the way you stop that thing so quick. Your body just can’t stand it.”

Petty was right, it wasn’t the track, it was the impact of the collisions that caused the injuries.
Clearly, after the incidents in New Hampshire, driver safety was an issue that needed to be addressed, but it really wasn’t — not past the discussion stage anyway.

Not even the death of NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver Tony Roper, who died of head and neck trauma injuries in October of 2000, after a collision with the wall at Texas Motorspeedway was enough to get concerns about driver safety past the discussion stage.

It would finally be four months later, during the Daytona 500 in 2001, when NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt would also die from “head trauma” as a result of a collision with a track wall that people started to take action.

We now have ’soft walls’ or ’safer barriers’ that absorb and dissipate energy during a collision. We now have a newer, more safety-conscious race car, with energy-absorbing foam and impact-dissapating crush zones.

And drivers are now mandated to wear some sort of head and neck safety device, such as the HANS, to prevent neck and head injuries during collisions.

We also have four fewer drivers to cheer for.

So when you watch the race this weekend think about Adam Petty, Kenny Irwin Jr. and their families.

I will be.
NASCAR Ranting and Raving Blog Has Been Ranked The 7th Most Influential Nascar Blog By Sports Media Challenge As Seen On Their Sports Blogs Index™ Top 10 NASCAR Blogs.