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Everyone knows racing's danger is part of it's appeal.
If you want to watch videos of the crash, I don't plan to post them here. You can go to Fox news.-Bob

Following NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Austin Dillon's accident Sunday night July 5th at Daytona International Speedway that sent his No. 3 Chevrolet airborne, FOX NASCAR analyst/commentator and former crew chief Larry McReynolds shared his thoughts on the accident and safety in restrictor-plate races:

MCREYNOLDS ON HIS INITIAL REACTION WHILE WATCHING THE ACCIDENT UNFOLD:
"Every bit of that accident scared me, from the way the car got up in the air to how quickly the fence stopped it when the car was probably running 190 mph or more coming out of the tri-oval, and then hitting the fence at a dead stop a short distance later. But what frightened me the most was when Brad Keselowski hit the No. 3 car because Austin was sitting on the track at a dead stop and got slammed."

MCREYNOLDS ON WHETHER ACCIDENTS LIKE DILLON'S, WITH CARS AIRBORNE, ARE AVOIDABLE AT RESTRICTOR-PLATE TRACKS:
"When cars are running that fast and in that big of a pack, it's inevitable a car will go airborne at times. I speak not just as someone who has worked in the sport for decades but also as a father whose son has raced at Daytona and Talladega. As much as we want to get there, we won't ever make these races 100-percent risk-free. How can you eliminate risk when a pack of cars is running more than 190 miles-per-hour? You probably can't. But if you do, I'm afraid you will lose some of the attraction that brings fans to the track or to their TV during these races. People watch bull riding because it's dangerous. They watch extremely motorcycle events because they're dangerous. We do everything we can to make racing risk-free, but we can't. If we could, I'm not so sure we'd have a very good product on the track. I mean that with all sensitivity and respect but also with practicality."

MCREYNOLDS ON WHETHER NASCAR SHOULD SLOW DOWN THE CARS AT RESTRICTOR-PLATE TRACKS TO ATTEMPT TO AVOID SIMILAR ACCIDENTS:
"If you slowed them down 10 mph, does it change what happened? I doubt it when cars are eight or more rows deep and on top of each other, unless you slow the cars down so dramatically that you lose part of the attraction for the fans. Not to sound cold or morbid, but NASCAR probably shouldn't overthink this issue. We shouldn't go nuts and change a bunch of things to attempt to fix what may be unfixable. Then you hurt the product on the track, and we don't need to do that. We have six really good races a year right now -- the four restrictor-plate races and two road-course races. We don't need to hurt those six races but rather should work on improving the excitement of the other 30."

MCREYNOLDS ON WHETHER SAFETY MEASURES, FROM THE CATCHFENCE TO THE CAR, DID THEIR JOBS:
"We need to salute NASCAR for their diligence in continuing to improve safety. We beat them up early in the season about SAFER barriers, but what they've mandated with the race cars helped Austin walk away from the accident. The car did its job for him. As much as we, and I in particular, came down hard on Daytona International Speedway about SAFER barriers in February after Kyle Busch's crash, the catchfence did its job because the track has stepped up its game since Kyle Larson's crash there in 2013. The good thing is the track won't just repair the fence and move on to the next race. They will evaluate the accident with NASCAR and other tracks to determine whether anything further can be done to the fence to improve fan and driver safety. NASCAR has the No. 3 car at the R&D Center, and they'll also figure out if more can be done to improve the safety of the race car for the drivers. RCR will do the same thing. No one will rest on their laurels after this accident, but I'm afraid they won't be able to find a lot of areas they can adjust to change the end result."

MCREYNOLDS ON WHETHER TRACKS SHOULD REFRAIN FROM SELLING TICKETS AT THE LOWER LEVEL NEAR THE START/FINISH LINE:
"That's probably something that should be evaluated, especially at high-speed tracks like Daytona and Talladega. A bit of a buffer zone between the catchfence and seats would be a good thing -- not just in the tri-oval area but down the entire length of the grandstands. Look back at what happened with Kyle Larson's accident in the XFINITY Series in 2013."

MCREYNOLDS ON WHETHER ACCIDENTS LIKE DILLON'S ARE JUST PART OF THE INHERENT RISKS DRIVERS ACCEPT:
"Every driver in every series accepts an inherent risk. The faster they go and the bigger the packs, the greater the risk. And as much as their loved ones don't like it, they have to accept it also. It goes with the territory, just like in football. In any high-risk sport you want to be good in, you must accept that risk."

MCREYNOLDS ON THE RACE AS A WHOLE:
"I truly enjoyed that race. I certainly didn't enjoy what happened on the last lap -- I hated it. But that was a whale of a race that kept me entertained the entire time. Why else would I have stayed up until after 3 a.m. watching?"

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWYfVkyzR0o

Ned Jarrett won the 1965 championship after posting 13 victories and 42 top-five finishes in 54 starts.

Even though it’s been 50 years since Ned Jarrett captured Ford’s first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship, he remains the manufacturer’s all-time win leader with 43.

Jarrett was recognized for his contributions to motorsports with the Spirit of Ford Award in 2003, which is the highest honor in Ford Performance

 

[h=1]NASCAR HOF (2011) Ned Jarrett
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwVP_Bj4Es8[/h]
The story of Ned Jarrett
NASCAR Hall of Fame Inductee Ned Jarrett, Father of Dale Jarrett

tartass342

34:34 i love that shot of the racecars flying by the plane holding President Reagan. Just awesome.

 

Former Champ Lloyd Dane

Lloyd Dane (right) helped present the 2010 NASCAR K&N Pro Series West championship trophy to Eric Holmes. Dane and Holmes are among seven drivers to win three or more West titles. NASCAR via Getty Images

Missouri Native Won Three of First Four West Titles
By Jason Christley,
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Lloyd Dane, NASCAR's first three-time champion on the West Coast, has passed away. He was 90.
Dane won three of the first four championships held for the Pacific Coast Late Model championship, the forerunner to the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West. He was originally from Eldon, Missouri, before moving to Lakewood, California. He relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina, in recent years.
"Lloyd will always have a significant place in NASCAR history as one of our first champions," said George Silbermann, NASCAR vice president, touring and weekly series. "He was well respected as a competitor and champion and will be missed. All of us at NASCAR would like to extend our thoughts and prayers to his family and friends."
Dane also competed in 52 races over 11 years in NASCAR's premier series, collecting five wins. He picked up victories in 1956 at California State Fairgrounds in Sacramento and Oregon's Portland Speedway, in 1957 at California's Eureka Speedway and 1961 at Riverside International Raceway in California.
Shortly after NASCAR expanded to the West and reorganized the California Stock Car Racing Association under the NASCAR banner, Dane won the inaugural champion. He out-distanced runner-up Danny Letner and Marvin Panch. After losing out on the title to Letner in 1955, Dane came back with a brand new 1956 Mercury and won the championship in 1956 and '57.
He is one of seven drivers to win three or more championships in the 62 year history of the series.
"He started out on the rock bottom, where he didn't have much money, and worked his way up," said Ken Clapp, former NASCAR vice president and long-time friend of Dane's. "It took him seven seasons to win his first race (in 1956). And then when he finally did win, he won 10 more times.
"He was a very clean driver -- a Benny Parsons type of driver. He was very patient and realized you only had to lead one lap to win the race.
"He made a good champion and represented the sport well. When he became more established himself, he was never too busy to help a younger driver coming along."
In 1964, Dane received the Naughton Award for Sportsmanship in NASCAR racing. He withdrew from a race at Sacramento, in October and loaned his car to Ron Hornaday Sr. This helped Hornaday to win his second straight win the Pacific Coast championship.
In 2010, his achievements were recognized as part of NASCAR's Champions & Pioneers project. He took part in the championship presentation at Phoenix International Raceway that year as Eric Holmes clinched his third NASCAR K&N Pro Series West title.

Lloyd Dane won four times in NASCAR's premier division in addition to his three NASCAR West championships. NASCAR Archives via Getty Images

 

Mark and Matt Martin each shift racing futures
Auto racing - Commentary

July 5, 2008|By Steven Cole Smith, Sentinel Columnist
DAYTONA BEACH -- Matt Martin's racing career appeared to be on track: He had his own Web site, his own fan club, worked out of a 7,500 square-foot shop, and went to the races in a diesel truck that slept six and pulled a 40-foot trailer to area tracks like Orlando Speed World and New Smyrna Speedway from the home base just outside Daytona Beach. With Gatorade as a sponsor, he had been profiled on multiple TV networks and in the New York Times, and his picture had been on 20 million cereal boxes.
That was in 2002 when Matt, son of NASCAR driver Mark Martin, was 10.



At the time, Matt had it all figured out: "When I'm 12, I'll start racing Legends cars, When I'm 16, I'll be racing in Hooters Cup. When I'm 18, I'll be in NASCAR, in the Craftsman truck or Busch Series. And when I'm 21, I'll be in Winston Cup."
It was all going pretty much according to plan. For the 2006 season, Mark Martin announced his semi-retirement, planning a reduced schedule to spend more time helping Matt race. But then something slightly unexpected happened: Matt Martin became a normal teenager, and as such, became interested in normal teenage things.
"It's [racing] not my thing," Matt, now 16, said Saturday. "It's not what I want to do. I raced when I was younger, but it's just not what I'm interested in now."
So it's time for the old man to get back to work. At a press conference at Daytona International Speedway, Mark Martin, after two seasons of racing in the NASCAR Sprint Cup series part-time, becomes a full-time driver for 2009 for Hendrick Motorsports.
It is not so much that Martin, 49, was looking to get back to full-time racing -- with 35 wins since he started in the series in 1981, Martin has plenty of money and nothing to prove. But racing for team owner Rick Hendrick was too appealing to pass up. If he didn't, Martin said, "and I live another 35 years, I'd spend every day of those 35 years wishing I had driven for Hendrick."
Martin says he has two central passions in life -- his family, and racing, in that order. And he was willing to give up racing himself to spend more time with Matt's racing career. "If Matt wanted to play baseball instead of race, I'd go to every game I could, and I'd cheer louder than anybody else. But I wouldn't tell him when to swing at the ball, or when to steal a base, because I don't know those things. I do know something about racing, and how to make a car go fast. That is something I can help him with."
Martin's attitude is refreshing. There's a fine line between supporting your kids, and pushing them. Tom Busch, father of former Nextel Cup champ Kurt Busch and current points leader Kyle Busch, once showed track officials a fake birth certificate for 15-year-old Kyle because the minimum age to race at the track was 16. But given the way Kyle has developed into NASCAR's hottest driver, it's hard to criticize that sort of passion.
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In 2003, Martin was signed to a driver development contract with the Ford Motor Company, making him the youngest member of the Ford racing family. By 2004 at age 13, Martin had five wins in the FastKids division of the FASTRUCK Series, a series for youths aged 12 to 17.
In 2005, he won two races while competing against drivers ten to twenty years his senior in the FASCAR league. He raced the No. 66 Ford F-150 Truck. In 2006, at 14 years of age, he ran a limited schedule in the southern tour of the ASA Late Model Series , as well as running in the FASCAR Pro Truck and Sportsman Series . He won a late model race at New Smyrna Speedway in Florida and finished third in the season points.
During the 2007 season, Matt was moved over from the Ford Motor Company development program to Ginn Racing's development program; headed up by Mark Martin. During a March 8, 2008 airing of Speed Channel's Trackside, Mark announced that Matt ended his racing career. Mark stated his son wanted to concentrate on his education but didn't rule out a possible return to racing; later that year Matt Martin stated that racing was "not my thing anymore".

 

Links tying some racing history together:
see post 26

 

Highlight this for easier reading.......
Some Southern 500 Stock Car History:

 

Richard Petty A racers life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rnnHtTbASA