[Wichita-SCCA] New Dallas race track

[Rocky Entriken]

  Safety rules are developed as lessons learned when bad things happen.  Fire suites for mostly stock cars are there because even now a mostly stock car could catch on fire if it's in a crash and if it does a fire suit offers "some" protection, certainly more than not having one at all.  Ask any burn victim if they wish they could have had some nomex to reduce the magnitude of their injury and I think you'll find a common answer.  The rules for karts were adopted from the karting sanctioning bodies but I still agree with them.  You've got a fuel container between your legs and you're surrounded by an ignition source on your right side and back.  Seems stupid to me to not wear a fire suit.
When I first went road racing, open roadsters like my Spitfire were only required to have rollbars. I recall a fellow named Stan Trumbower at the Ponca City GP (maybe 30 years ago now -- I still remember him). He went off, something launched his car into the air, and his head got squished between his rollbar and a tree branch. His helmet wasn't enough to save him. That was the day I decided when I next went racing i'd have a full cage. And I do now. Postscript -- the well-known *autocross* fatality in Irvine, Calif., in the early '90s was almost an exact duplicate of that Ponca incident. That guy didn't have a roll cage either, just a rollbar. It was "just an autocross," right?

What're the chances something bad might happen? 1 in 1000? That implies someone has to be the 1 and I'd rather it not be me. 
  Yeah sure you can find other organizations that will let you run with no safety equipment at all and no workers.  As long as you're willing to take that risk then it may cost less too.  However, the SCCA has been around longer than anyone else and therefore have the most experience dealing with incidents when things go wrong.  I'd trust their judgment above my own in matters of safety.
The now-infamous street solo in Hastings, Neb., where, late in the day, a car went off, slid into a gas satation where people were watching, and injured several spectators. It was not an SCCA event although many SCCA people were there, me included (won my class that day, which was CP/DP combined!). It was organized by the Council of Motorsport Clubs, Rocky Mountain Region, which had done a similar and quite popular event in Cheyenne, Wyo., for years. As a result of that Hastings event, CMC ceased to exist. 

Postscript: When the accident happened, it was SCCA people who jumped in and took charge while CMC officials stood around stunned. Simply enough -- we knew what to do. Despite the accident the overall impression with the people of Hastings was positive, to the point there is a new road racing track there now. Also, if accidents (even bad ones) happen at SCCA events, the club does not cease to exist.
  -Brian
  p.s. the ambulance at HPT is stupid but it's not a SCCA requirement

Amen to that, especially with another one over on the dragstrip.

--Rocky Entriken
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