THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 28, 1994 TAG: 9408280215
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BRISTOL, TENN. LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
One week after receiving life-threatening brain and lung injuries in a crash during practice at Michigan International Speedway, Winston Cup star Ernie Irvan was taken off the critical list.
Characterizing the change as ``a big step up,'' Dr. Walter Whitehouse of St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ypsilanti, Mich, said Irvan is now in serious but stable condition.
The 35-year-old driver is still on a ventilator in the intensive-care unit but is now ``conscious but drowsy,'' Whitehouse said.
This encouraging news came Saturday evening, as the Winston Cup series was preparing for the Goody's 500 at Bristol International Raceway. And as Irvan slowly recovers, many of the conversations in the garage have centered on what actually happened and on what can be done to prevent it from happening again.
And on these matters, NASCAR is simply not very forthcoming.
Fans of auto racing have always been aware that race-car drivers can get killed, but given the level of interest in NASCAR, it isn't good business or good public relations to stop the flow of credible information after one of your athletes has been killed or gravely injured.
As to questions of what happened, it is now apparent, although NASCAR won't say it, that Irvan's injuries occurred simply from the G-forces he received when his car decelerated so suddenly after hitting the wall.
Car owner Robert Yates confirmed Saturday that Irvan's head didn't hit anything inside the car after it hit the wall. The back of his skull apparently was fractured by his brain when his head rebounded backward after whipping forward when the car hit the wall. And his lungs apparently collapsed when other internal organs crushed them as his midsection lurched forward against his safety belts.
``I've looked at the car,'' Yates said. ``The car did its job. His head didn't hit anything inside the car.''
Yates also said there was nothing amiss with Irvan's seat or safety belts. ``It was just that sudden stop,'' he said. But we need to do more so that drivers will be able to walk away from one of these things without injury. I don't want to say it was `just racing.' ''
Yates has called for reducing horsepower to slow speeds even as he continues to develop some of the most powerful engines in the Winston Cup series.
``I hate restrictor plates, but if they gave us one when we sign in at Dover next month, I would be the happiest guy there,'' he said.
Ray Evernham, Jeff Gordon's crew chief, said more could be done on improving safety belts.
``With the millions of dollars we spend to go faster, car companies could spend more on driver restraints,'' Evernham said. ``The guys have been wearing the same five-point harnesses since the 1950s. Why can't we come up with some sort of space-age jacket or flak jacket?
``We've got the safest cars in the world. We've proved that time and time again. But when a guy doesn't break anything on the outside and is still hurt on the inside, you've got to look at the restraints.''
But when you ask NASCAR's top administrators about how they go about investigating accidents, or what they have found and what they haven't, or what they might be doing to try to prevent them, you get little or no information.
``It's not that we can't. It's just that we prefer not to,'' said Mike Helton, NASCAR's vice president of competition. ``We've found out in the past that explanations are misinterpreted or things are taken beyond our explanations. I think our concern is for the guys in the garage to trust us.''
Yates said he is satisfied with what NASCAR has done.
``I feel like it's not NASCAR against the competitors,'' he said. ``I think we all have the same love and interest in safety, and if we're not doing something right, we all work together to fix it.''
But that still leaves the public out in the cold. In this atmosphere, rumors run rampant.
For example, one story was that Irvan's car hit a bird and that the collision broke one of the rods holding the sheet metal to the car frame. The rod then punctured the right front tire, causing Irvan's car to hit the wall.
Helton said that wasn't true, but his statement was limited to his interview with this reporter. He added that while NASCAR believes that the right front tire blew out, it still doesn't know why,
But a more formal and complete explanation of what NASCAR has discovered and ruled out would go a long way toward helping information-hungry fans separate fact from rumor. by CNB