5 of the Most Important Crashes in Racing History

 

5 of the Most Important Crashes in Racing History

By Brian Cotnoir

In 2020, we’ve seen a lot of scary accidents: Ryan Newman’s flip at the end of the Daytona 500, Maverick Vinales having a motorcycle fly over his head at over 200KM/h and losing his brakes the following race, and most recently Romain Grosjean’s fiery crash at the Bahrain Grand Prix.  The fact that all three of these men walked away with only minor injuries is a testament to the safety and improvements racing his endured over the years.   A decade ago we probably would have been mourning Ryan Newman and Romain Grosjean this year because of those horrendous accidents, but due to safety improvements in racing over many decades and good grace of God, they are still here with us today.

All three of these accidents are sobering reminders of how dangerous motorsports truly is, and it’s because of previous accidents that we’ve seen these improvements made, and that got me thinking that some of these racing accidents are very important in regards to they lead to changes and improvements to safety in racing.  So today I’m going to talk about 5 of the Most Important Crashes in Racing.   Now just a disclaimer, I will not be including any fatal wrecks in this list as the changes they happened after those wrecks were more reactive than proactive so I will not be including the fatal wrecks of Dale Earnhardt, Ayrton Senna, Fireball Roberts, Jules Bianchi, Scott Kalita, and others.

1.) Rusty Wallace Flips at Daytona & Talladega in 1993

Rusty Wallace’s 1993 season was a story of ups & painful downs.   That year he won 10 races and finished 2^nd in the points, but he also was involved in two of the worst wrecks of his career.  Wallace started the season by flipping his car down the back stretch during the Daytona 500.  A few weeks later at Talladega while coming to the finish line, Wallace tapped by Dale Earnhardt and spun across the finish line before getting airborne and flipping hard several times.  

Despite those hard wrecks Wallace continued to race through the season.   These wrecks were very common at the time, if a car got turned or spun around and got air underneath it, it was going to flip, especially at the big tracks like Daytona & Talladega.  Enter NASCAR team owner, Jack Roush.   Jack Roush helped develop a pair of hinged roof flaps that would deploy if a car got spun around backwards.  The flaps would lift up and would disrupt the airflow and help the cars stay grounded for the most part.  The flaps that Roush designed became mandatory on all NASCAR’s starting during the 1994 season.  NASCAR’s still do occasionally flip, but thanks to the roof flaps it happens a lot less often than it used too.

2.) Fernando over Leclerc at the Belgian Grand Prix

Easily the most debated piece of safety equipment in recent years Formula 1’s Halo saw lots of criticism when it was made mandatory on all F1 cars during the 2018 season.  For years fans and drivers alike requested something to help protect a driver’s open head in racing.   With the deaths of drivers like Justin Wilson, Jules Bianchi, and Henry Surtees being linked to fatal hits to the head caused by debris (or in Bianchi’s case skidding off road and crashing into a safety vehicle) many wanted to see something around the drivers helmet and cockpit to prevent such horrific accidents from happening again

Enter the Halo, a piece of titanium weighing 9 kilograms.   Many critics of the halo said it made the F1 cars look “too ugly” or that it was an eye sore and made was overall unappealing.  I can admit, I was one of those people too, but my opinion changed on the opening lap of the 2018 Belgian Grand Prix when going into the first corner Fernando Alonso’s McLaren was launched in the air and landed on top of Charles Leclerc’s Sauber.  The view after a visibly frustrated Charles Leclerc walking down the pit lane, uninjured, made a believer out of me, and I knew that the Halo was a great safety device.   Even Romain Grosjean credited it with saving his life after his accident in Bahrain in 2020.

3.) Michael McDowell’s qualifying wreck at Texas Motor Speedway

The 2000-2001 seasons were a rough time for NASCAR, the sport lost 4 drivers—Adam Petty, Kenny Irwin Jr., Tony Roper, and Dale Earnhardt—to fatal accidents and ARCA driver Blaise Alexander was also killed during this time.  The cause of all of their deaths: A basilar skull fracture.   NASCAR received a lot of harsh criticism for being a reactive sport when it came to safety rather than be proactive.   Calls for better safety equipment, safer cars, and tracks were called upon and NASCAR gradually began introducing new safety protocols, starting with the mandatory usage of the Head & Neck Restraint System (HANS) for all NASCAR drivers.   Next they would put a ban on open face helmets, and then they began installing SAFER barriers at all NASCAR tracks.   Lastly came one of their most controversial creations the “Car of Tomorrow”, a car almost universally despised by most NASCAR fans.

These safety features were all put to the Ultimate test during qualifying at Texas Motor Speedway in 2008.   Rookie driver Michael McDowell lost control of his Toyota during qualifying and hit the wall head on at over 180 MPH.   McDowell flipped violently several times down the track before coming to a stop.  With a little assistance from track workers, McDowell emerged from his destroyed race car completely uninjured!   All of NASCAR’s work and safety changes had just passed the ultimate test.

4.) Bobby Allison crashes into the fence at Talladega

One of the most infamous wrecks in NASCAR history occurred in 1987 at Talladega Superspeedway.  That weekend Bill Elliott set the official record for fastest qualifying speed at over 212 MPH for the Winston 500. On lap 22 of the race, while coming through the tri-oval section of Talladega Superspeedway, Allison’s car cut a right rear tire which caused his car to spin and became airborne.   With no roof flaps on the car at the time, Allison’s car sailed and crashed into the catch fence at over 210 miles per hour!    Had the catch fence not done it’s job it could have been the worst racing disaster since Le Mans in 1955.   While Allison escaped the wreck with only bumps and bruises, 5 fans in the grandstand were injured.  

The race had 2 silver linings:  1.) Bobby’s son, Davey, won his first NASCAR Cup Race and 2.)  NASCAR mandated restrictor plates to decrease the speeds of cars at both Daytona & Talladega.  

5.)  John Watson at the 1981 Italian Grand Prix

In 1981 the McLaren F1 team had constructed their MP4/1 chassis for drivers John Watson & Andrea de Cesaris.   The MP4/1 chassis had a new cutting edge design.  Instead of being made out of the lightweight aluminum that almost all F1 cars had been made out of up to that point, McLaren designer John Barnard had the MP4/1 had the chassis made out of Carbon fibre; a lightweight material that is weaker than aluminum, but can be used to dissipate energy from sudden impacts during wrecks.

The MP4/1 was put to the ultimate test during the 1981 Italian Grand Prix, when John Watson crashed into the barrier and his car came apart in a fiery wreck.  Surprisingly, Watson emerged from the wreck alive an uninjured.   The carbon fibre monocoque had done its job, and Watson survived a wreck, then many assumed was survivable.   Soon after, many other F1 teams began to copy the carbon fibre chassis design of McLaren, and today all F1 chassis are made out of carbon fibre.