Just finished reading Ed Hinton’s latest tearjerker in the Orlando Sentinel. He has gone to great lengths to bring out how distraught the families of J.D. McDuffie and Clifford Allison are over the current situation, all the attention given to Dale Earnhardt, and their treatment by Nascar when they lost family members in racing accidents.
One of the big issues, according to Mr. Hinton, is the fact that Nascar hasn’t “taken care of” the families very well. It seems that those families were only able to collect the insurance benefits on the policies that are carried by Nascar on its competitors.
My lord people, these drivers are not employees, they are contract labor, and as such it is their responsibility to have proper insurance coverage to cover medical expenses, extended disability or ample life insurance to provide for their families. While Nascar does have insurance, it is minimal, intended to supplement any other coverage, not to take the place of other adequate policies. I have never seen any insurance coverage that does not have set limits as to amounts paid as well as lengths of time benefits will be paid. The sanctioning body does it’s job, the insurance company paid the amounts it was contracted to pay, and now Nascar should “take care of the families”? For how long? And why? Should NASCAR support the families for the rest of their lives? I don’t know of any company that does that for its employees, let alone its contract labor.
I’m going to quote from a copy of the Nascar rulebook here; my copy is a couple of years old, but I’m reasonably certain the current book has some similar sort of wording. First, in the preface, the first sentence states: The NASCAR Rules are designed to provide for the orderly conduct of stock car racing events and to reduce the always present risk of injury to both participants and spectators during such events. Further down in the same preface: No express or implied warranty of safety shall result from publication of, or compliance with, these Rules. They are intended as a guide for the conduct of automobile racing and are in no way a guarantee against injury or death to participants, spectators, or others.
Further on in the rule book, in the section on safety, the first paragraph reads: Automobile racing is an inherently dangerous sport. Each competitor assumes that risk when he or she participates in an event. While everyone involved, car owners, drivers, crewmembers, officials, promoters, and NASCAR, can take, and have taken measures to reduce the risk of serious injury, the risk cannot be eliminated and, in fact, will always be present at a high level. Members are REQUIRED to advise their spouses and next of kin, if any.
The release and waiver of liability and indemnity agreement that all applicants for membership in NASCAR must sign when making application, states clearly that the applicant “releases, waives, discharges, and covenants not to sue the promoters, racing association, sanctioning organization or any subdivision thereof, and release all of them from all liability to the undersigned, his/her personal representatives, assigns, heirs, and next of kin, for any and loss or damage, and any claim or demands therefore, on account of injury, whether caused by the negligence or gross negligence of the “releasees”.
And once again, the final paragraph states that the undersigned, (applicant), expressly acknowledges and agrees that the activities of the “events’ are very dangerous and involve risk of serious injury and/or death and/or property damage and that his/her heirs and next of kin have been so advised.
The application for the driver’s license has the same advisory and release that must be signed before the application will be considered. As far back as I can remember, I had to sign a similar release whenever I entered the pit area of any track where we were competing in any kind of automobile race.
By now, you’re probably asking yourself, “What is this idiot trying to say here”? I guess the point that I am trying to get across is that despite what all of the fans and most of the media would want us to think, despite all of their attempts to lay the blame at the feet of NASCAR, the truth of the matter is that the competitors AND their families are, or at least they should be quite aware of the danger involved in trying to make a living racing automobiles.
I’m getting rather tired of hearing the constant complaining about Nascar's lack of action, especially coming from the media and the fans, who are in no way affected by any of Nascar's actions or lack of same. It seems rather strange to me that the people who have the most to lose, the drivers, are still getting into their cars to race each week and are saying that they haven’t got any problems with the way things are being done. If the guys who are putting their lives on the line don’t have a problem, why in the devil do all of these fans who only sit in the stands or watch the race on TV every week, or the media types who are only reporting on the sport, feel the need to complain, condemn, and constantly search for someone to blame.
I was going to mention the softwalls issue again, but the advocates of softwalls will not acknowledge that the technology is not as far advanced as they want to believe, to try and convince them that the current technology isn’t up to the combination of 3400 lb. cars and 125 – 150 +mph speeds of the Nascar racecars, that all of the materials so far developed are being use primarily on the walls on the inside of the track, that those foam blocks they all seem to think so highly of have proven to be completely worse than useless in slowing the heavy cars from higher speeds; well, maybe I’ve said too much on that subject already.
Actually, I guess I’ve said more than enough about too much and taken up too much time and space for now.
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