Racing's Dark Side

"EddyE" (eddye) 11/14/2013 at 18:06 • Filed to: Racing, Le Mans, SCCA, Safety

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It had been raining a couple of minutes into the race when a prototype spun at the exit of Tertre Rouge a couple hundred yards from where I was standing. Moments later I saw the Robin's Egg Blue of a Gulf-liveried Aston Martin flash sideways, hit the safety barrier, and ricochet back onto the track. What was in my periphery—I'd been looking further toward the exit of the corner— immediately snapped into focus. There the car sat, motionless, without its driver's door.

No driver emerged, and I saw the crowd straining to get a clearer view from the hill where they stood on the inside of the corner. The corner workers were out and the track quickly went to a full course caution. I decided to head toward the crowd to see what I could see.

By the time I reached the inside of the track, the driver was no longer in the car and the ambulance had left. The workers cleaned up the debris. It would be a long caution. Before I left Tertre Rouge, I took this photo:

I walked to the Esses where a British man asked me if I knew the reason for the caution. I told him what had happened, but we were both curious as to why the caution was lasting so long. It wasn't till I returned to Paris on Sunday night that I read an email from a friend saying how sad it was that Allan Simonsen had died. The loudspeakers at the track were hard to hear, and my French isn't that good either, so I had somehow managed to not receive the news for the remaining 23+ hours I was at Le Mans. I don't know if I actively blocked out such a horrible possibility while I was at the track, but the moment I read the email I was overcome by what I'd seen.

When you're ten years old, meeting your hero is akin to winning the greatest sporting event you could imagine. In 1990, I met Ayrton Senna in Montreal before the Canadian Grand Prix. To say I was excited would be a massive understatement. Four years later when I learned of his death at Imola, I didn't think it was possible. As a child I'd yet to have much exposure to death, much less a death that occurred on a race track— the arena in which my dreams took place. I was sad, but it wasn't quite real to me, much like my having met him years before.

This week I read Sam Smith's column in Road & Track in which the author described a vintage Formula Vee race he was in where one of the competitors was fatally injured in a wreck. This wasn't the big stage of Le Mans or Formula One— it was the same level as any number of amateur racing events that take place across the world on any given weekend, and Smith's words were as real and clear to me as seeing that broken Aston through the lens of my camera last June.

My love of cars was apparent as soon as I could point to anything with four wheels. As soon as I could afford it, I built my Spec Miata. I've enjoyed SCCA club racing ever since. My resume will never look like Senna's, or even my sports car heroes like Randy Pobst or Andy Wallace, but I know that my life would never be the same if I could not pursue that feeling of competing and pushing the envelope on my talents as a driver. When I was younger I used to talk up that misappropriated Hemingway quote about auto racing and bullfighting being the only real sports, but as I've grown older I think that's a bit of misplaced machismo. Yes, it seems like it wasn't so long ago that death—frequent death—was an accepted part of our sport. But through the efforts of people like Jackie Stewart, Senna, and others to improve safety and the wellbeing of drivers, it's clear that passion, not machismo, drives racers to compete.

Not a lot of racers talk about the inherent catastrophic possibilities in our sport. You see moments in racing movies that suggest that if we think about it too much, we'll lose our "edge," that which pushes us to the absolute limit. Maybe there's some truth to that. Every one of us who puts a helmet on and heads out on the track makes some sort of risk calculation, whether conscious or unconscious. If we get consumed by the chances, real or perceived, then it's probably time to take off the helmet, and there's not one thing wrong with that.

I am a racer. I've had wrecks, some amazing saves, a bit of frustration, and enough successes to excite me and push me further. Yes, you could say we are thrill-seekers, but I don't know a single racer who has a death wish. I am aware of the dark side of our sport, and I'll do all I can to ensure my safety. 2013 has been a sad, hard year for many in racing. We as racers must not ignore the danger inherent in our sport, and we must do everything we can to be safe while continuing to pursue our passion to its fullest.

EddyE > EddyE 11/14/2013 at 18:08

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Sorry for the varying picture size— I am still getting the hang of this posting thing!!

For Sweden > EddyE 11/14/2013 at 18:22

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Not a lot of racers talk about the inherent catastrophic possibilities in our sport.

That's a problem. In aviation, we'd call that a non-dynamic safety culture. Drivers have to speak up in ways other than dying for racing to continue to become safer.

f86sabre > EddyE 11/14/2013 at 18:25

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Well written post with some very good points. As a racer myself I know where you come from. There is a passion to do it, but not to the point where nothing else matters. Maybe that is the difference between pros and amatures and maybe not. You look at the efforts of people like Mark Webber, a John Force and others that you mentioned in your post and you see a lot of effort on the pro side as well.

I was at Le Mans as well, we were still at will call getting our tickets when it happened, but it is pretty amazing that you didn't find out. We had Radio Le Mans on the scanner most of the race and found out pretty quickly. I think the first hints we got were from the production frequency for Speed's broadcast. Sometime after midnight someone hung the Scandinavian flag from the podium and it flew there until the end of the race. I was also unlucky enough to be at Vegas when we lost Wheldon. I was on the pit lane with a hard card and it was pretty crushing. One of my buddies was on his team and yeah...

EddyE > f86sabre 11/14/2013 at 18:50

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Thank you. I didn't get a scanner, which I should have gotten since I was on my own and didn't have others to share information with me. I was really engrossed in taking pictures and in retrospect I think I knew it was bad and didn't seek it out.

Some pros make it sound like nothing else matters— Keselowski most recently, and Earnhardt before him— but there's easily as many champions who know when to speak up or get out of the car. On the other side of the coin, there are a few amateurs who probably ought to have a bit much to prove out there.

Man, that had to have been tough in the pits in Vegas. I feel for you and your buddy (and everyone there).

Drakkon- Most Glorious and Upright Person of Genius > EddyE 11/19/2013 at 19:51

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Jackie Ickx ranks as one of my sporting heroes.
John Fitch too.

CHydro32R > For Sweden 11/19/2013 at 21:09

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As a racer (hydroplanes) and an aviator (airline pilot) I agree and disagree.

I agree with the fact that more open discussion about safety is very important for forward progress. That's why guys like Sir Jackie Stewart have proved to be so important. It's also critical to have honest discussions with your self and your colleagues about how to best be safe.

I just think that it's much easier to have a "dynamic safety culture" in aviation because the intensity of the risks is so much lower. In other words, in a full season of racing I would expect 1 or 2 crashes. In my entire career in aviation I expect none. In racing a single failure point is all it takes for a crash, be it a mechanical or human failing. In aviation the systems are much more redundant. On the human side, rarely can one mental failure lead to a crash, it's a chain of events. On the mechanical side the systems are double or triple redundant.

I think the inherent feeling of danger in racing, versus the inherent feeling of safety in aviation make it a very different conversation to have. Certainly it's much more difficult to have the discussion in racing, right or wrong.

Reinette > EddyE 11/20/2013 at 07:37

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It's really tough. My sport is eventing. In my first year, six riders died. In total, since 1997, there have been 37 rider deaths. (Not to mention horse deaths.) I stopped competing for a while because the risks just seemed too big.