Has indy racing gotten safer?

Question

since this death http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjXN1SC0UEw&feature=related i dont wacth indy racing becouse i preffer nascar but that crash looks.. i cant explain it. *****************warning the video shows a death*******************

Answer 1

yes, all motor sport is always working to make the cars safer over the years.  deaths will still happen though as it seems impossible to eliminate at that high speed.  I remember Greg Moore dying.  He was a crazy driver and you always felt as though he would die in a huge crash.  But the crash that took his life seemed to start so innocently.  And Dale Earnhart.  It didn't look like much of an impact at all.  The fact is they work every year at improving safety.  And anytime someone is hurt or killed they analyze what happened and respond to that specific cause.   I think in Dale's case, they wound up adding a HANS device for the driver.  All of the improvements over the years are reasons why there are so many spectacular accidents that drivers walk away from.  Like Kubica last year.

Answer 2

If you mean has it got safer since 82 when Smiley lost his life in your posted link, then yes it has.

Safety comes from many angles, safety features of the track for drivers, spectators and marshals, safety equipment of the drivers, safety of the cars.

What never ceases to amaze me when watching such videos is the fact that even though a driver may have emptied his brains on the tarmac a few minutes earlier like in the case of Gordon Smiley, the racing goes on.

Too much money at stake for all involved, TV, organisers, drivers, spectators who want to see what they paid for.

I think it shows disrespect to the deceased that racing goes on on that day even though everybody knows he's been killed.

They usually come out and say something like "it's what he would've wanted" etc etc.

I think what one might want is that if he gets killed on the racetrack that people actually consider this to be a major event rather than clean the blood and move on.