Last week I wrote about safety at the racetrack for drivers. This week I am continuing to look at safety at the track, but this time from the standpoint of the fans. If you are a fan of local racing and you have attended events at many different race tracks, you probably have seen a wide variety of safety measures in place to protect, drivers, fans, officials, and anyone else who is there.
Over the past couple of decades we have seen huge improvements in safety equipment used by race tracks and by drivers to protect everyone involved with the sport, but not all tracks and drivers take full advantage of what is out there today. Whether the issue is a lack of money or an unwillingness to part with it, there are some tracks that are flirting with disaster, and the fans are potential victims innocently waiting to be maimed or killed.
As a fan, I have walked into more than one speedway where I questioned the safety of the fans and drivers. Most tracks have adequate protection for fans from the action on the track, but some do not. On a recent trip to a speedway I walked up to the catch fence and realized that this particular one probably was not going to “catch” anything too significant. The fence was chain link with one steel cable running through it, but the cable was anchored to the standard chain link fence posts, and not anything more substantial.
If a car were to flip down the front stretch, that fence and single cable were not going to have a prayer of stopping it from going into the crowd.
So what if I were to bring this up to the owners of that speedway?
What sort of answer or reaction might I get? For starters, I would be willing to bet that the track owners may not be aware that the fencing was substandard and probably dangerous, or their priorities were focused elsewhere at the time and they were not giving proper attention to the potential risk to the fans. Not that they were deliberately putting their race fans at risk, but rather that they had other things that were distracting them from the need for better fencing.
Had I or some other fans pointed out the potential for disaster to them they might have done something about it, but chances are they wouldn’t have done anything immediately. That leaves me with a choice were that to be the case. I could stop going there if I felt it was too risky, or I could find somewhere at the track that was a little safer from which to watch the races. But what about all of those other fans who might not realize the risk, or never noticed the inadequate fencing in the first place? Would they be there if they understood the risk?
Ask around and you will discover that most people assume that they are safe when they go to a race track. They trust that the wall and fencing will do it’s job and prevent a car, or whatever else might be flying loose, from going into the crowd. And fans tend to seriously underestimate the forces involved in a crash of that type as well, therefore believing that a chain link fence (or in some cases mere roll out fencing strapped to metal posts) will be adequate to stop a race car. Most have no clue as to what could happen, nor the probability of it happening, and if they did they would make sure to be well away from the fencing.
Currently there is no authority assigned to insure that a track is safe other than the insurance industry itself, unless the track falls under the umbrella of a major sanctioning body such as NASCAR. Most states will inspect rides at the fair or insure the safety of fans at a sports stadium, but no one goes to the local race tracks and does a safety inspection. The outside inspections that are done are mostly done by the track’s own insurer, and those are done to assure that company is not being exposed to unnecessary potential for large expenses. You might think this would insure that the fans were safe because the company is attempting to protect itself, but that is not always the case. Insurers tend to look for big risks and not so much for the smaller ones, so you may still be at more risk than you think.
And in some cases, there is no one to insure that the track is even insured adequately! More than one race track has managed to operate without any insurance at all, simply because no accidents happened that called attention to the situation. An owner or operator may be willing to assume great risk in an attempt to make a fast buck, then plan to get out later or break down and obtain proper coverage at a later time. That certainly does not help you if you are the one who is injured while the operator chose to play Russian roulette with your safety. And yes, you can sue. But be aware that lawsuits take years to be settled and sometimes by the time they are decided there is no money to pay to the victims.
Most track owners and operators are smart enough to understand the risks involved and know that at any moment during a race the unthinkable could happen. But unfortunately for the fans, you cannot know if a track owner or operator knows of a potential problem and is betting that it will never happen at their track, simply because they are not willing to part with the money to correct it. As fans we should take notice of such things when we go into a racing facility, and react according to what we see and how much risk is involved. Assuming that a facility is safe is probably not a smart thing to do, especially in a sport where speed and power are major dynamics of the show.
And as fans we should be willing to point out what we see as potential risks to track owners and operators. By doing this we insure that the people in charge are aware of the problem, and if it is not corrected then we know that the owners may not have the fans’ safety very high on their priority list. At that point we have a choice as to how to react, and can make our decisions based on the knowledge that we and our children might not be safe while watching a race at that facility. But above all, we need to remember that it may be a track operator’s job to protect those who come into that facility, but that the only person who can do the best job of protecting ourselves is us.
BJ CAVIN currently announces and writes for Ocala Speedway in Florida. His personal blog is on MySpace.
His Column, “A Closer Look with BJ Cavin†appears on Real Racin USA each Tuesday.
