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PROGRESS
race car driver receives is not like a motor vehicle crash.
It’s more like what you see from falling off of a building.
A high g-load is the biggest threat to a driver.”
Second, Nelson says, “is intrusion, when something
from outside the car comes into the cockpit and makes
contact with the driver.
“The third one is fire. Of course, other things can hap-
pen, and there can be combinations of factors, but those
are really the three categories of threats.
“I’m knocking on wood as I say this, but in the top
series, all three have been effectively addressed with
advances like driver restraint systems, more armor
around the cockpit, soft walls, good fuel cells, and fire-
resistant equipment, but you can never stop trying to
make things better.”
Indeed, “We’ve picked all the low-hanging fruit,” says
Dr. Steve Olvey, the physician who, along with Trammell,
has specialized in racing, largely due to his work with
IndyCar and its predecessors, including CART and USAC.
Olvey’s book, “Rapid Response: My Inside Story as a Motor
Racing Life-Saver,” was a game changer when it was
released in 2006, and now it’s the basis of a 106-minute
documentary, also called “Rapid Response,” that will be
released to theaters on September 6.
As a medical student in Indianapolis, Olvey began vol-
unteering at the Indianapolis 500 in 1966. If he thought
it would be fun, well, it wasn’t. “One of the ambulances
was a hearse, with an oxygen tank and a gurney. That
was it,” Olvey says. During the worst of it, “One in seven
drivers was killed every year.”
Olvey and Trammell, along with plenty of others, be-
gan pushing for change. In procedures, in equipment,
in race cars, in racetracks, in education for drivers, team
owners, and track owners.
One of the biggest problems is the trickle-down effect:
There essentially isn’t one, Olvey says. Major series like
NASCAR, IndyCar, Formula 1, IMSA, and the NHRA have
the resources to develop and implement sophisticated—
and often expensive—safety changes, plus the clout to
make them mandatory. Professional teams and drivers
have the money to invest in the new technology.
Small tracks and amateur drivers might not. Accord-
ing to a story in “The New York Times,” there were at
least 141 fatalities at short tracks—hometown dirt and
paved ovals—between 2002 and 2016, when the story
was published. This bothers Olvey to no end. “A Saturday
night racer will pay $1,000 for a new set of tires for his
race car but won’t invest the same amount in a helmet
that could save his life,” he laments. “I mean, how much
is your head worth? How much is your life worth?”
Add to this that local oval-track racing is struggling
in many parts of the country, with both car counts and
fans on the decline. Many tracks don’t make a head
and neck restraint system mandatory. Often, faced with
losing a car and the cost of driver and crew pit passes
if the track turns an entry away for not having proper
safety equipment, the track may decline to vigorously
enforce whatever rules it does have.