Throughout the world, your pit pass for a race meeting will have printed on it “Motor Racing is Dangerous.” This is a legal requirement in many countries, as otherwise the organizers might have to pay compensation if you get injured by a flying wheel or even a flywheel, which I have seen twice, with one coming straight up and through the bonnet of the Lotus Cortina while the car was in the pits! The other was a Cooper Maserati which had a monumental blow up with piston rings rolling down the main straight at the Lakeside circuit in Queensland, Australia.
So the potential for injury is always there, both for the driver and for the spectator. However, my tale this month relates more to the racing cars themselves.
When you enter a race there is the potential for damage to the race car, especially on the first corner of the first lap. Look at F1 with the pile-ups that happen on the first corner. In fact, if the entire field actually manages to get through unscathed, this is a rarity. Generally there is a string of cars going into the pits for fitting of a new nose. Some nose to tail jiggling and some side to side sliding really is par for the course. After every race, I walk around the car to see how many new scuffs and scratches the car has got. Between one and three is about par for the course.
However, there is a far greater hazard with race cars – and that is just getting them from the garage to the circuit and return all in one piece. Numerous race cars have fallen off trailers after the pit crew forgot to tie the vehicle down to the trailer.
But there are others. What about a Formula 2 car that cracked its chassis being towed to the race meeting on a winter’s night? This was a race car where the chassis tubes were used to get the water to the front mounted radiator and then back to the engine. The car was sitting on a flat bed trailer and the cold winter’s air was whistling through the radiator. It was so cold that the water froze, splitting the chassis tubes. The damage was so extensive the car could not be repaired in time for the meeting the next morning.
Motor Racing is indeed dangerous!
