TL;DR: No.
As the extent of Kyle Busch’s injury Saturday evening at Daytona became evident, Twitter erupted in angry calls for SAFER barriers to be put up on every wall at every track. An interesting division of sides appeared. A small number of people cautioned that simply plastering every track with SAFER barriers was likely to not only not prevent driver injuries, but might actually introduce new problems. Other people accused this group of being insensitive and “stupid”.
Interestingly, the small number of cautionary voices were people like the folks who write Racecar Engineering magazine, people who have been involved with motorsports safety research and people with advanced engineering degrees.
So let’s be really clear here. While I appreciate the passion with which people responded to the accident, opinion has absolutely no place in science and engineering. We work with facts, realizing that oftentimes, we don’t have all the facts we need. In an ideal world, we would have data from collisions at every track in the world, from every angle, with every type of racecar. But we don’t.
It’s fine for fans (and especially for drivers and their teams) to raise their voices and demand more attention to safety, but the average fan (or the average driver) has zero business specifying what those safety measures ought to be. The average NASCAR executive or track administrator doesn’t, either. Motorsports safety is a constantly evolving research field and luckily, NASCAR recognizes that and works with the top people in the field.
Daytona
Let’s start with the obvious. A bare concrete wall at a track where speeds reach 200 mph is indefensible. To their credit, NASCAR and the Daytona folks promised to rectify that right away. Tire barriers – which are not ideal, but are definitely better than nothing – were up for the next day’s race.
Racetracks originally put up concrete walls to contain the cars and protect the fans. They weren’t there for driver safety. People don’t question the status quo. It wasn’t until a number of serious accidents in both IndyCar and NASCAR prompted an effort to develop a better wall. I detail the origin and development of the SAFER barriers in my book, The Physics of NASCAR, based on my interviews with the barrier developers. The effort was initiated by IndyCar, but gained momentum when NASCAR threw their support (and money) behind it.
Once the technology was developed and proven, NASCAR mandated SAFER barriers on the outside walls of all tracks. It was a long road to development because it was a brand new (and frankly, counterintuitive) idea and everyone wanted to make sure it would work under as many conditions as possible.
How SAFER Barriers Work
For an overview of NASCAR safety, check out this video I made with the National Science Foundation. Here’s the brief version.
The SAFER barrier works by extending the time of impact. It’s much more comfortable to fall on a mattress than a floor because the mattress gives. The mattress absorbs and dissipates energy, so that the energy isn’t dissipated through you.
A NASCAR stock car going 180 mph has approximately the same kinetic energy as stored in 2 pounds of T.N.T. When the car comes to a stop, all that energy has to go somewhere. Energy can be dissipated by skidding (friction between wheels and asphalt), light and sound (it takes energy to make that screeching noise and to produce sparks), spinning (energy is used to rotate the car) and deformation (energy is used to crunch or break things). The key is that you want to dissipate energy any way except through your driver.
A mattress won’t make much difference to a speeding stock car. You need something much stiffer, and that’s the purpose of the SAFER barriers. They’re like mattresses for race cars. They use the energy of the car to deform the barriers and spread out the impact over a longer time. This directs energy away from the driver.
Why SAFER Barriers Aren’t the Only Answer
SAFER barriers save lives and this analysis is meant in no way to diminish their importance. But the inventors of the SAFER barriers would be the first folks to remind us that it takes multiple safety devices, working in unison, to protect the drivers (and the crowds). HANS or hybrid devices, helmets, restraints and the car itself are all part of the equation. You can’t address any one of those elements without considering the others. So here, briefly, are some things to think about.
Kinetic Energy Ranges
SAFER barriers work best in a specific kinetic energy range. I was surprised when interviewing drivers for my book to find that more than one mentioned that hitting a SAFER barrier at low speed actually hurt worse than hitting a concrete wall. But it’s true. The wall works by giving. If you don’t hit it hard enough, it doesn’t give and then it is just like hitting a concrete wall. This is relevant for a couple reasons.
1. Most tracks host more than one kind of racing series. The kinetic energy scales of those series can vary widely. Any solution has to make the track safer for everyone who races there, not just stock cars.
2. Different tracks have different speeds, so even just within a single racing series, this means different kinetic energies. Compare Martinsville and Daytona, where the maximum speeds are a factor of 1.5-2 different. That means the kinetic energy scales differ by a factor of 2.25-4. That’s a big range. The response of the SAFER barriers can be tuned by using different strength foams and different types of steel tubing – but again, it has to work for all series racing there, not just NASCAR.
Get Off Your Grass
Get rid of the grass. Grass has no business being anywhere in a racetrack that cars could possible end up in.
a. Remember how I mentioned that you can dissipate energy by friction between the tires and the ground? The higher the coefficient of friction between the two materials, the more energy you dissipate. You know what the coefficient of friction is between grass and rubber? Very small. It’s even smaller when the grass is wet. This is why road courses have gravel traps. Huge friction that slows down the cars and hopefully stops them before they hit. (Gravel traps have their problems, notably that it’s near impossible to get out of one once you get in one, and that flying gravel is dangerous and difficult to clean up.)
b. Second, there is a drop off between the asphalt and the grass – a lip on which the car can catch, creating a torque. Check out Elliott Sadler’s crash at Talladega.
When he comes from the grass back onto the track, the roof of the car catches on that lip and starts the car rolling again. If I were a driver or an owner, I would be after every track to get rid of any grass near the track.
The Car Itself
NASCAR has done an amazing job engineering a much safer car than we had fifteen years ago. But the job isn’t done. There hasn’t been a career-ending injury (including death) during a race in any of NASCAR’s three major series since 2001. (Note added. It was pointed out to me that Jerry Nadeau‘s career ended after a very hard hit in 2003 during practice for a race at Richmond.) The injuries we have seen have all been below the knee. Dario Franchitti broke an ankle at Talladega. Brad Keselowski hit a wall testing at Road Atlanta and broke an ankle. Kyle Busch’s injuries from the Daytona crash were to his left foot and right lower leg.
The pedal box and the front of the car need some attention. Can the idea of collapsible steering columns be worked into the pedals? The front of the car is designed to crush (thus dissipating energy) in a crash, but maybe there is a way to refine how the crushing happens and reinforce the driver’s cockpit near the legs. I’m sure the folks at the NASCAR R&D Center are already thinking about this side of the problem.
Perhaps there are driver safety devices than could be developed as well, similar to the HANS device that prevents the head from slamming forward in a wreck. Maybe there’s a carbon fiber leg brace or similar piece that could provide some extra protection for the driver’s legs in a crash. Of course, anything developed can’t interfere with the driver’s ability to control the car after a crash.
The Fallacy of Safe Racing
Motorsports is dangerous. People are killed participating in motorsports – especially at the lower levels, where the safety requirements are much lower than in the high-dollar, high-visibility series. But even in NASCAR, even in F1, even in Indy, there will be serious injuries and – I’m sorry to say – we haven’t lost our last driver to an on-track incident. All you need is that one in a thousand, one in ten-thousand confluence of events.
What Should Fans and Drivers Be Demanding?
Don’t tell NASCAR and the tracks that they should cover every conceivable wall with SAFER barriers and then sit back and congratulate yourself for a job well done.
Consider for a moment the ratio of people whose job it is to make cars fast to people whose job it is to make racing safer.
NASCAR has become so much more proactive about safety in the last years. If I were a driver, I would be lobbying NASCAR to hire more people at their R&D Center focused on safety, and to support more motorsports safety research at universities and industry.
The FIA has an Institute for Motorsports Safety. It’s a non-profit foundation that centralizes safety initiatives and testing and works to get safety innovations on the track quickly.
Maybe it’s time for NASCAR to team up with IndyCar and the Tudor United Sports Car series and form something similar in the U.S. This isn’t an issue that should come up only after a serious wreck. It’s an issue that needs long-term, on-going commitment and attention. As a fan, I’d pay an extra buck or two on top of a race ticket if that ‘tax’ were earmarked for safety research.
For More:
- Car Safety Video from the Science of Speed series
- Wikipedia on Safer Barriers
- SAFER Barrier Website with video of how they work
- My Post on Why Safety Takes Time
- The unique challenges of Pit Road Wall safety
- The SAFER barriers explained in terms of impulse
- This isn’t the first time I’ve suggested we need a U.S.-based motorsports safety institute
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Thank you for bringing up the grass. Every person I’ve talked to has gone on about the safer barriers, but grass is a huge issue too. Not only for the Kyle Busch crash, but there were several wrecks throughout speedweeks where a driver got run into the grass and had the front of their car destroyed. If I was a team owner, I’d be pretty upset that my car got ruined not because of hitting a wall or another car, but some stupid grass. It also makes it hard to control your car if you get into it, so you have no way to stop your car from sliding back onto the race track. It’s not a solve all like you said, but grass is just awful in every way for a race car.
Grass is an interesting subject. In civil engineering, we try to slow or contain water using natural cover, rip rap, etc. Natural cover looks better, but rip rap performs superior in large-water situations. A new product called Flexamat allows grass to grow between preformed concrete nodules woven into a nylon base, essentially giving the performance of rip rap, but the much better look of natural cover.
It’s made me wonder if someone might develop the same type of hybrid for racetracks? Something with the performance of asphalt, but the look of grass (and dogwood trees in the corners don’t count, Martinsville!)