Saturday, February 19, 2011

The New World

Diandra Leslie-Pelecky is a professor of physics at the University of Texas-Dallas. Along with her husband and fellow physicist, Robert Hilborn, they wrote a book called “The Physics of Nascar” in which they break down many of the elements that are at the heart of the sport, like aerodynamics, tire compounds and structural steel. Almost every decision made in the sport, they say, is made for one of two reasons—speed or safety. I was reminded recently of one particular part of the book:

“A race car going 180 mph has 16 times the motion energy of the same car going 45 mph,” they wrote. “If you used the motion energy of a racecar at 180 mph to shoot a 150-pound person from a cannon, that person would travel almost five miles straight up.”

The reason I thought of this passage was because of what happened 10 years ago this weekend: Dale Earnhardt Sr. was killed on the last lap of the Daytona 500.

Michael Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Dale Sr. led a pack of cars around the two-and-a-half-mile track at 190 mph. What was interesting to me was that even though he continued to drive for Richard Childress Racing, he started his own race team, Dale Earnhardt Inc., and the two cars that were in front of him—the ones driven by Waltrip and Dale Jr.—were his.

“He can’t lose,” I remember thinking. “He’s going to take the first three spots—two as an owner and one as a driver.”

When it became evident that the car he was driving couldn’t catch the cars he built, he went into owner’s mode—and father mode, in the case of Dale Jr.—and decided to do what he could to protect their lead. He tried to block the cars behind him and, instead, got clipped and turned. Suddenly, the 190 mph of motion energy he had pointed down the track was now pointed straight into a concrete wall.

•••

I had to be somewhere as soon as the race ended, so I turned off the TV and ran out the door right after Waltrip took the checkered flag. The last thing I heard was Darrell Waltrip, who was broadcasting the race, say, “I just hope Dale’s OK. He’s all right, isn’t he?”

The words echoed in my mind the entire time I was gone, and as soon as I got home I flipped on the computer to get an update. That’s when I saw the headlines: “Earnhardt killed in crash at Daytona.” I remember the moment in much the same way I remember the Space Shuttle disasters or Sept. 11. I knew it was a world-changing event, although the world that this tragedy was going to impact was considerably smaller than the others. The change would be more limited to the insular worlds of auto racing in general, Nascar in particular and me in specific.

I was never really a Dale Earnhardt fan. There are two kinds of athletes in the world, I think: those with character and those with attitude. I prefer those with character. Earnhardt was all attitude. At least on the track. He would just as soon wreck you as race you. For a large portion of the Nascar audience, that’s what made him a hero. “He drove how I feel,” one fan was quoted as saying this week.

But I knew the impact Earnhardt being killed would have. Earnhardt was more than just a skillful and crazed driver. He was the bridge between what the sport was and what it was becoming. He spanned the gap between the old and the new. Between Junior Johnson and Jimmie Johnson. Between Winston cigarettes and Sprint cell phones. Between GM Goodwrench, which sponsored his car, and AARP, which now sponsors Jeff Gordon’s car.

When Earnhardt died, so did what was left of the old Nascar.

•••

Last year Elliott Sadler had a similar crash at Pocono Raceway—180 mph headfirst into a barrier. The crash was so violent it ripped the engine from the car. Sadler, however, walked away—bruised and dazed, but alive.

The reason Sadler survived was because Earnhardt didn’t. After Earnhardt’s death, Nascar redesigned the cars to make them safer, started using SAFER (Steel And Foam Energy Reduction) barriers—“soft” walls around the tracks that absorb the impact of an accident—and mandated the use of the HANS (Head And Neck Support) Device, a brilliant piece of equipment that keeps the head from snapping. Interestingly, Earnhardt—and all the drivers—were given the option to wear one, and almost all declined.

Earnhardt’s autopsy revealed myriad injuries—eight broken ribs, a broken left ankle, fractured breast bone. But what killed him was a ring fracture at the base of the skull where the skull rests on the upper portion of the spine. Its breaking is caused by the violent whip-like motion of the head, which is exactly what the HANS Device is designed to prevent.

What happened 10 years ago is a sad but unfortunately all too common occurrence—that it takes a tragedy to force us to do what’s best, what’s smart. It took Dale Earnhardt’s death to change Nascar. Auto racing is still a dangerous and sometimes deadly sport. But it’s safer. Better. There’s a greater chance that drivers will live to race another day. Drivers like Elliott Sadler. And even though Earnhardt and the old Nascar are forever gone, it seems to me that in the end, the world's left in a better place. At least the insular worlds of auto racing in general, Nascar in particular and me in specific. And that's a good thing.

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