No way to prevent all freak accidents

Chris Powell already had a lot to worry about in preparation for NASCAR weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where he is president.

Then a tire went into the crowd at Firebird International Raceway near Phoenix during a drag race last weekend and killed somebody.

Now he has more to worry about.

"Whenever you’ve got cars going at high speeds there’s a possibility something unexpected, something unfortunate can happen," Powell said Thursday. "I hope the thing people realize is that these instances are very few and far between."

A race car once crashed into the crowd at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and killed 82 spectators. That was in 1955. It hasn’t happened again. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen again, because when it comes to tires or race car parts or even the race cars themselves flying into the crowd, there is only so much you can do. Constructing them out of Nerf isn’t a possibility. Not yet, anyway.

Powell and the company he works for, Speedway Motorsports Inc., did about all they could do in 1999, after a tire flew into the crowd during an Indy Racing League event at Charlotte, N.C., killing three spectators. That grisly incident came on the heels of an eerily similar incident in which a tire flew into the crowd during a CART event at Michigan the year before, also killing three spectators.

SMI spent millions to raise the fences at its tracks from 14 feet to 21. Overhangs designed to prevent tires and car parts from flying into the crowd were extended from 3 feet to 6.

Are fans who will attend this weekend’s Sam’s Town 300 and Shelby American any safer than fans who attended NASCAR races before the improvements?

Maybe.

Probably.

When there is only so much you can do, who can really say?

LVMS has never had an incident of a tire or car parts flying into the stands and injuring spectators. "Not that I know of," Powell said.

He could attribute that to those high fences and extended overhangs, but he won’t. He could attribute that to fate and planets not getting out of whack, but he doesn’t.

It’s never a good idea to tempt fate and planets straying off course when you make your living operating a racetrack in a litigious society. 

When car parts do fly into a crowd, they usually wind up nailed to a wall in somebody’s den. Provided they don’t hurt or kill somebody. Then they usually wind up in court labeled Exhibit A.

I once watched a bunch of shirtless guys lug the hood of Robby Gordon’s Trans-Am race car toward the paddock at the Long Beach Grand Prix. It had flown over the fence and landed near the motor home where they were drinking beer. Their intention was not to sue but to have Gordon autograph it.

There is only so much you can do.

Maybe in and around the NHRA, they’re not doing enough.

The fences separating the spectators from the 300 mph race cars at Firebird Raceway were not 21 feet tall with 6-foot overhangs. They were not even 14 feet tall, because if you put a 14-foot-tall fence between the race cars and the spectators, the drag race fans would probably tear it down. Powell says if the NHRA decrees 14-foot fences or 21-foot fences or 99-foot fences be erected as a result of last week’s tragedy, then that is what will be done at Las Vegas Motor Speedway’s dragstrip.

But even a 99-foot fence wouldn’t have saved Lyle Kurtenbach of Rothchild, Wis., at the 1987 Indianapolis 500. Kurtenbach was sitting in the top row of the Turn 3 grandstand. Out of harm’s way, right? A wheel came off Tony Bettenhausen’s car. It was struck by the nose of another car driven by Roberto Guerrero and launched so high into the air that it struck Kurtenbach and killed him instantly.

The only reason I remember Lyle Kurtenbach’s name is that he had the terrible misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time when fate intervened and planets got out of whack.

When that happens, there is only so much you can do. 

Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352.