NASCAR isn't uttering a word about what it's up to. It's gone so far as
refusing to accept questions about the review, or to even identify the
participating experts. Some wonder about the independence, if NASCAR is calling
the shots completely out of public view.
So should conspiracy theorists rally the troops? Not if you listen to
biomedical engineer John Melvin, a leading authority on racing accidents.
Melvin endorses the latest NASCAR approach.
"With the intense scrutiny this is getting, I'm sure they will do a good
job," said Melvin, adjunct professor at Wayne State University's center for
the study of racing injuries. "I'm certain of that. I mean if they bumble
it this time, they're really going to get caught. I don't think they will. I
think they're trying to do the right thing. They're in a tough situation.
They're not used to quite this scrutiny."
The brouhaha of the hour is whether Earnhardt's lap belt
"separated" in the crash. NASCAR officials insist that it did. Others,
namely Tommy Propst, a paramedic on the scene, have challenged the finding,
saying the belts were intact.
From the beginning, Melvin challenged NASCAR by suggesting it's more likely
the basal skull fracture suffered by Earnhardt was a result of a violent,
whipping forward motion of his head -- and had nothing to do with belt failure.
Yet even he doesn't accuse NASCAR of fudging on the evidence.
"They wouldn't dream that up," Melvin said. "There is
something in there. We need to understand it, and what it's affect had on the
overall outcome of things. That's only done under careful analysis."
Melvin is of the school that any NASCAR mistakes since the Earnhardt crash
have been of the public-relations variety and not born of malicious intent.
Indeed, the racing crowd has never experienced such scrutiny.
"The whole Earnhardt thing has been so much more than any of us ever
thought," offered Humpy Wheeler, vice president/general manager of Lowe's
Motor Speedway in Charlotte. "If you look at wrecks that have happened
before in racing, we got famous race drivers killed. We never knew what
happened. Oh, Fireball Roberts burned up. That was pretty apparent. But the
media intensity is so much greater today. We're under a microscope and
everything we do is going to be looked at.
"What's frustrating about this whole thing to people is everybody wants
to know two things: What really happened and who did what to whom."
In the short term, Melvin says it's not so important to get caught up in why
Earnhardt died. He refers to it as a "complicated crash," adding that
"strange things happened." But what's most important is it energize
the projects already underway to make the sport safer.
There's more than sufficient evidence, he suggests, indicating that a
head-and-neck restraint system can save lives. Like Earnhardt, none of the three
drivers killed earlier in the year wore such a safety device.
"It's just another of these cases, and maybe it's a little different
because of the factors we're not all aware of," Melvin said of the crash
that killed Earnhardt. "Certainly, the torn belt is an unusual thing. It
hasn't shown up in any of the other crashes. And did that play a role? As a
secondary thing in my view, possibly. "When the information is really
solidly put together in the Earnhardt crash, it will probably support what we
are already doing."
The differences here with Earnhardt, a driving throwback, are things like the
way he sat in the car and his use of an old-style steering wheel. And Melvin
says those all need to be factored in to the investigation.
"There were lot of things Dale Earnhardt did differently, and I don't
think we know all those things right at the moment," Melvin said. "But
given his status, he did them. He used to have a seat in old days different than
everybody else because he was Dale Earnhardt. I wondered if he still had it, but
after talking with the team I understand he went with a fully aluminum seat. But
there are factors like that.
"I don't know how they had his belts arranged. It's pretty much up to
the drivers to figure those things out. What we're trying to do, since I started
lectures [with the drivers] in January, is to tell them from our test what we
know works best. And there are lot of miffs out there about stretchy belts being
good and all this stuff. And they aren't. We're gradually overcoming that, but
there are still a lot of people doing things that aren't quite right.
"You also want to see, did the seat bend? People don't realize that the
seat is the other half of the belt system. The only reason you can really have
belts tight on the body is you pulled yourself down into the seat. Now if the
seat should give way, your belts give way. You have to characterize that as
well. A lot of factors need to be carefully documented and I assume they'll
report on all that."
In the end, because of the tremendous stature he enjoyed, Earnhardt's death
probably will do more for the safety movement in the sport than anything. Almost
two-thirds of the Winston Cup drivers now use head-and-neck restraints. Research
continues in an effort to make the seating compartment and front end of the cars
safer.
And to those who followed in his footsteps, what happened on the final
Daytona lap proved no one is invincible.
"Dale Earnhardt really didn't care much for these things," Melvin
said. "I think that influences these young drivers. They think, 'If you're
really good you don't get into these problems.' For the most part, he avoided
the big ones. And when he didn't, he got out of them.
"That was the mindset that impeded the progress, and ironically his
death is going to speed it up."