dgrobs

Oh man that’s horrible.

If that was the case, and I have no reason to believe it wasn’t, where were the flaggers?
Maybe I just don’t know the layout of flaggers on the circuit, but if he time to pull over to the wall, no corner worker saw him no flaggers with waving yellows?

Just speculation and I could be 100% wrong, and either way this is horrible.

pjazz

If I remember correctly they use lights at Daytona. Possibly not quick enough to see decelerating from high speed.

raspritz

To say, "this is horrible", is so true. But perhaps not quite enough. There is undoubtedly something to be learned, and it is too bad that in motor-racing there really isn't an appropriate venue. For nearly five decades, I participated in one of Ernest Hemighway's other two true sports, mountain-climbing, and at a fairly high level. In that world, there is indeed a formal venue to compile, analyze, and disseminate information about accidents, so that some might learn. For decades, each year the American Alpine Club has compiled, investigated, and analyzed available information about climbing accidents, and publishes an annual "Accidents in North American Mountaineering". While no single accident has changed the world, in aggregate understanding of accident causes has led to important changes in both technology and practice of the sport. Maybe this would be a good role for SCCA. Food for thought.

Jas0nn

I used this exact example early today in the discussion about rules and 13/13s that's happening in the MidEngine thread! I totally agree. When the stakes are so high, we ought to use every teaching moment available to us ...

But at the right time. Today is not yet that tIme.

ProCoach

That is not true. The lights on the banking are plainly visible throughout NASCAR T4, start/finish, entering T1 and then workers in the narrowing throat at T1 through T2.

If a driver can’t see them, they're not looking.

lgusto

Agree 100%. In my industry (merchant marine) the US Coast Guard publishes extensive information on mishaps at sea. Responsible captains devour each of these reports and make their safety recommendations an important part of their SOP.

LuigiVampa

I think the take-away from this is unfortunately simple and there isn't much to learn - there is no completely safe place to be parked on a hot track.

Do we need to know much more?

dgrobs

I would like to know more, just for learning and instructing purposes. Something just doesn’t feel right about this horrible accident, and I would still like to know what could have been done for this to have NOT have happened.

lgusto

This post has me scratching my head. Is this not like saying "there's just no safe place for a fire on a ship" and letting that be the end of the lesson? Yes, I'd like to know much more. For me adequate Failure Analysis must include What happened, Why did it happen, and How do we prevent it from happening again.

LuigiVampa

What more is there than the only truly safe place is behind the armco? They should have brought him in.

Unlike your ship example what happens appears very binary.

ldamelio

I have to respectfully disagree with you here. I have a background in HRO - applying safety systems and best practice learned from from commercial aviation, nuclear power and other high risk industries to reduce error and harm in other industries (health care in my case.) Tragedies like this are almost never binary. In my former industry, 85% of the time there are flaws in system design that cause preventable harm. Often they are multiple small things that individually seem inconsequential but somehow line up just right (or wrong) to kill someone. In 15% of cases, human error is involved. And system flaws and human error not mutually exclusive in any given tragedy.

I agree with the others here who cite dissemination of reviews of bad outcomes in alpinism and marine operations as opportunities to learn and prevent future issues. If every tragedy was reduced to binary or a single issue causing the outcome, we'd still have jetliners crashing every week like we did in the 1980's, none of us would be driving with HANS (the Earnhardt review was extremely detailed), we would have multiple F1 drivers dead from a lack of halos, etc.

Luigi - you're an attorney and can appreciate better than anyone how complex the law is. Saying this incident is binary is like saying that all civil or criminal litigation is binary and right and wrong can be quickly and unambiguously determined. None of us can armchair this incident at Daytona from behind our keyboards, but I'm certain there are lessons to be learned and possibly improvements to me made at the venue.

raspritz

It seems to me that if you declare there is nothing to be learned you guarantee that outcome.

ldamelio

You nailed it - and in many less words than I used to say the same thing.

Jas0nn

Well said.

nineball

there is nothing to learn from this incident other than all drivers on track, amateur or professional, should pay close attention to cautions be they flags or highly visible lights. it was human error that caused a small incident which lead to another extremely unfortunate incident, nothing more.