More tragedy in stock car racing, foot in mouth disease, Penske switches, and the GM-UAW Quality 500 from Charlotte, North Carolina.
More Tragedy.........
I'm not surprised to hear that NASCAR is taking a hard look at the causes and fixes associated with the death of ARCA driver Eric Martin at Charlotte. The sad part of the whole deal that usually someone has to lose their life before the sanctioning body has the intelligence to do anything. It's really a shame that they don't have a soul in their organization with vision, someone who could see the problems before they arose. All of that big NASCAR money and no brains looking ahead for anything but more money.
I'm also not surprised to hear that safety guru Jeff Burton has been running his yap about it. These guys all have a lot to say after the fact. Where was Jeff Burton before the accident happened? Actually, a similar tragedy took place last season round about this time, but no one cared to try to learn anything from it. Why didn't Jeff Burton jump on that bandwagon? I'm referring to the fatal wreck that Blaise Alexander had, and the ensuing wreck caused by Kerry Earnhardt hitting Alexander's disabled racecar.
Earnhardt stated that he didn't have any control over his car when he hit the water and oil left on the track after Alexander hit the wall. Earnhardt just couldn't stop, and neither could Debbie Renshaw before she nailed Eric Martin. Sometimes these crashes following crashes are inevitable, there's nothing that can be done to stop them, racing is racing. Those cars are out there to see who can go the fastest; you can't stop a 160 MPH race car on a dime. Lets give the lady the benefit of the doubt, it wasn't her fault!
Neither wreck involving Earnhardt or Renshaw was the driver's fault. They were clueless as to the impending fatal situation ahead of them until they were right on top of it, then they were helpless to do anything to prevent making impact with the disable racecars. The sad part of it is that it's a stigma that both of them are having to live with. Kerry Earnhardt knows the pain of that stigma, and has visited Debbie Renshaw in the hospital in an effort to help ease her grief.
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