Losing More

by Tammy

Is it just me, or has this been an exceptionally bad year for deaths in the motorsports community? Allan Simonson at Le Mans, Sean Edwards at a private coaching event, Jason Leffler in Midget cars, Josh Burton in Sprint cars, Andrea Antonelli in motorcycle racing, and Maria de Villota from injuries sustained in her 2012 accident.

And don't forget other freakish accidents and deaths: the course worker run over at the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix, Dario Franchitti's terrible wreck at Houston or Justin Wilson's t-bone accident at Fontana, even Tony Stewart's Sprint car wreck.

I think 2013 was worse than years past. So why?

Given all the attention paid to making the cars safer (especially in IndyCar since Dan Wheldon's death in 2011), I think it's just the law of averages.

I know that drivers think it won't happen to them—I mean, they have to believe that to get in the car and do their jobs. But I have to believe that some of the losses (especially of Sean Edwards, who I believe would have been racing with the team at Petit, but instead was there on the car above), hit particularly close to home. Or maybe they'll chalk that one up to letting someone else get behind the wheel with you in the car.

Dr. Jim Norman, who's a racer and doctor, among other pursuits, is passionate about the need for safer tracks. In the wake of Edwards' death, he added more information to his article on the why of racing deaths, including one tidbit that surprised me: gravel traps get less and less effective the faster a car is going. If a car is going really fast, they'll skip right over the top of the gravel and hardly be slowed down. Which of course renders them useless for situations in which they're the most necessary.

I met Jim at Petit (photo above), and he was passionate about the need for racetracks to update their safety features. In this day and age, he argues, drivers take plenty of risks, but they shouldn't need to take the risk of running head-first into a concrete wall or a tree, and many tracks are still constructed in that fashion (Road Atlanta included, such as the runoff from Turn 1, where there's grass leading to a wall lightly rimmed in tires).

On one hand, I can hear some of the old-timers saying they didn't need those things when they raced (like they say/complain about lights at the Daytona 24). And I can understand the dilemma of the racetracks, who aren't scurrying to fix these turns and walls, because those are huge costs to compensate for something that's already inherently dangerous. On the other hand, shouldn't we do everything we can to make sure drivers don't die?

I just hope 2014 isn't as traumatic and deadly.

Death in Racing

by Tammy

I was doubly shocked to hear of the death of Allan Simonsen at the start of the 24 Hours of Le Mans this weekend.

First, because of the death itself. So early in the race, no contact with other cars, not even on the fastest part of the track. On the other hand, Le Mans is not a track with lots of safety improvements ... mostly because it' snot really a track. It's modified country roads.

But second, I was shocked because on Friday night in Pasadena, CA, I had dinner with one of my editors and talked through ideas for the book I'm currently working on—about another 24 hour race, the one in Daytona. As we brainstormed about death toll means and motives for murder (it's what we do), she asked if someone could be killed in a car on the track, murdered to ramp up the tension. To make the situation gut-wrenching for Kate.

So I sat in my hotel room that night (I attended the California Crime Writers Conference over the weekend) and envisioned a scene in Kate's first stint in the car (in the race's third hour, most likely) where she's the first one past a terrible accident. One in which the driver dies soon after being removed from the car. Because that would give me the opportunity to explore how Kate will react. How she'll go on. How the race and the teams will go on.

And then, Saturday morning (my time), Allan Simonsen had a terrible impact with the guardrail at Le Mans. A different race. A different track. Reality versus fiction, again. And I was shocked.

I have no real conclusion, just a lot of jumbled emotions. I'm saddened by the loss of Simonsen, as I am by the recent losses of Jason Leffler, Dan Wheldon, and others. I'm reminded once again that I am unlikely to make up anything that hasn't happened in real-life racing—or maybe I'm reassured that even the "wild" ideas I have will be believable. (At least my racing scenarios. Perhaps not my murder plots). It's said that truth is stranger than fiction. Maybe it's simply as likely as fiction.

And sadly, ultimately, I'm reminded of something I said last week: physics will always win. Rest in peace, racers.