Crain News Service report
DETROIT (March 6, 2013) — Calls for NASCAR, IndyCar and other sanctioning bodies to address catch fencing concerns were heard long before Kyle Larson's Nationwide Series car recently crashed at Daytona International Speedway, injuring more than 30 spectators.
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Kyle Busch said that the drivers understand the challenge. He said that it would be nearly impossible to eliminate all risk to fans, much like stick-and-ball sports cannot guarantee that a fan won't be struck by a ball or a puck hit into the stands.
"In our sport, our ball is a 3,400-pound racecar going 200 miles per hour," Mr. Busch said one day after a dramatic crash Feb. 23 in a Nationwide Series race at Daytona International Speedway sent flying debris into the stands, injuring spectators.
"The catchfence did its job, and that was to push whatever is coming at it at back onto the racing surface, although there were some other pieces that did dislodge from the car and travel into the grandstand. We do have wheel tethers already, we do have hood tethers already. The cars are built to the integrity that NASCAR requires. Yesterday was just a fluke. You saw the perfect storm," he added.
Mr. Busch said he just hopes any changes to the fencing don't detract too much from the experience of attending a race.
"I'm not an engineer, but I would hope they wouldn't put up more fencing than you can see through," he said. "I've heard talk that they want to put up plexiglass like at hockey games, but now you'd get a [glare] from the sun. If it rains, you're going to have water spots all over it. You're going to end up having a guy out there cleaning windows all day long."
A group of industry experts have been meeting regularly for a couple of years and actually met in Indianapolis two days before the Daytona incident.
Dean Sicking, who led the development of the SAFER barrier project at the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility in Lincoln, Neb., said several concepts are being considered.
The material could be clear like what is used in highway projects, or it could be similar to the steel cables used in today's fences.
"I believe it's halfway in between," Mr. Sicking said. "It will be substantially different [in concept], but I think we're going to be able to use many of the same materials."
Mr. Sicking declined to put a timetable on the project, noting that the team of engineers spent four years developing the SAFER barrier before it was installed at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2002.
He credited IndyCar founder Tony George and former NASCAR boss Bill France Jr. for providing the money for the SAFER barrier and the leverage with the tracks to get it installed.
Mr. Sicking said technology used in catching airplanes on aircraft carriers might have carryover. Representatives of a contractor in that field shared information at the recent meeting, held Feb. 21.
The next challenge, he said, is to get a car to fly into a fence under testing conditions.
This report appeared in Autoweek magazine, a Detroit-based sister publication of Tire Business.