Freelance Writing Jobs | Today's Articles | Sign In

Articles
Writers
 
Browse Sections
Home NASCAR

To be, or not to be.......


NASCAR's woes, the Richmond race, and a new trivia contest for May.

NASCAR's Woes.........

Events surrounding the broken lap belt fiasco seem to be getting out of hand. Did it break or did it not? Lets look at this logically for a change. Have any of you ever attempted to cut a woven nylon strap with a utility or razor knife? Unless you are very strong, and have a really heavy thick blade, you are not going to cut it on the first try. Now consider a heavy five-inch wide nylon webbed belt. How much force do you think it would take to break a belt like this? Is it logically possible for the human body to be able to create enough force dynes to break a belt like this? Would the body not come apart before the belt did?

As I stated in a previous article, the belt may have been up against a metal edge on the seat. They claim that the belt was fastened to the floor of the racecar. I erred previously thinking the belt was attached to the roll cage structure. But, in order to break it, the body would have to be strong enough to exert thousands of pounds of pressure, and it just isn't logical that a mass of flesh and bones would not break apart before breaking a five inch woven nylon belt.

Truckers use four-inch nylon straps to strap down loads weighing thousands of pounds. I have seen trailers that have flipped over in accidents, and the belts did not break, they held the load intact to the trailer. It seems logical that if anything were to come apart, it would be the stitching where the belt is attached to the buckles. It was reported that the stitching did not come apart.

Another item that I find interesting, is the statement made by firefighter Tommy Probst concerning firefighter Jason Brown's attempt to cut Dale's woven nylon helmet strap with shears. It would not cut. Who do I believe? I believe the account given by the rescue personnel. No broken lap belt was found on the day of the crash. It was reported to have been discovered the next morning.

Then, we have the Bill Simpson story. We all know that Simpson is the owner of Simpson Performance Products, which manufactured the lap belt. He claims that he was in a phone conversation with Jim France, Bill France's brother, the morning after the crash, February 19th. He claims he related to France that he was going to go public with his concerns about the Cup racecar's structures being responsible for the death of Dale Earnhardt and three other drivers in less than a year's time. Two days later Simpson claims he was told that NASCAR was going to announce that they had found a broken lap belt in the No. 3 racecar that had been manufactured by Simpson Performance Products. The announcement was made on Feb. 23 at North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham, N.C.
The copyright of the article To be, or not to be....... in NASCAR is owned by Thomas M. Sampson. Permission to republish To be, or not to be....... in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Go To Page: 1 2 3 4

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic