NASCAR NATION – 4-7

NASCAR needs a safety crew. Now, you’re probably thinking “this guy isn’t very smart. NASCAR already has safety crews at their events.”
I know for a fact that NASCAR has safety crews at each and every event, from test sessions and qualifying, to pre-race and the race itself. That’s not what I’m referring to here.
I mean, NASCAR needs a standard safety crew. Or better put, a traveling one.
Racing series such as the Indy Racing League here in the United States and Formula 1 in Europe already use this technique, and it provides several advantages over different crews each weekend.
First and foremost, it creates standard crews and crew members, with familiar equipment. Being a firefighter myself, I know how complicated it can be to use someone else’s equipment, or to operate in an area you are not familiar with. With a standard team, the members of the crew would know where, how, and what to use to get drivers out of their vehicles as quickly and safely as possible.
Second, it allows drivers to have a certain feeling of assurance, knowing that if they are involved in an incident, they have the best possible care coming. I’m in no way trying to insult the local crews that protect the track, but there’s a big difference from helping a driver from a street-legal car and a race car.
With the same crew week-in and week-out at the track, it will allow the drivers to become familiar with the faces, building trust in the crew, and ultimately creating safer and more competitive racing.
And with that familiarity comes other perks. With the same crew interacting with the drivers every weekend, they’ll be able to better serve the drivers when incidents do happen on the track. They’ll have better knowledge of prior injuries, such as a case like Tony Stewart’s bruised ribs in 2007 suffered from the week prior required him to be assisted from his race car at Dover
The more knowledge the crews have of the drivers, the safer they’ll be.
Obviously it would be tough, with the current economic state of our sport, but it’s something NASCAR should seriously consider if they are truly as concerned about the safety of their drivers and crew members as they seem to be.
Bruce Knoll, 18, of Eldora, can be contacted by email at bknoll jr4cmcherald@yahoo.com