Gordon critical of LVMS after hard crash into barrier
Quote selected text Published March 3rd, 2008 in NASCAR News
Four-time series champion Jeff Gordon was critical of Las Vegas Motor Speedway following his hard hit on the inside retaining wall late in Sunday’s race.
Gordon’s spinning Chevrolet went head-first into the wall for the “hardest I’ve ever hit” after contact with Matt Kenseth. Gordon was upset the wall didn’t have the SAFER Barrier that is pretty much standard on the outside walls.
“That kind of hit shouldn’t happen,” Gordon said. “There is no reason why any track we go to should have that. I could have been really hurt bad.”
Gordon anticipated being “really sore” on Monday when he reports to Phoenix International Raceway for two days of open testing. The hit destroyed his car.
“It took me awhile to be able to catch my breath and to get out,” he said. “I’m thankful that I’ve got an awesome team … because they build a safe race car. Several years ago, those types of hits, you wouldn’t be standing here right now.”
- LVMS looking at wall where Gordon crashed
- Hendrick slams LVMS for not having Safer Barrier, says they shouldn’t race there
- Sprint Cup and Nationwide teams to test in preseason at LVMS
- Michael McDowell walks away from violent qualifying crash at Texas-UPDATE
- Labonte ok after hard crash at Watkins Glen
I have never understood why when they put the barriers in the tracks did not put them not only along the entire inside walls, but also the entire outer wall.
Yes it’d cost a massive ammount of money, but there should be no price to high to pay for safety.
Not to mention the track might get a little bit on an insurance discount if they did that.
any time there is an opening like that it should be protected even if just by stacks of tires!! i thought for sure my boy was gunna be hurting inside that car!! the fact that they even have openings like that is beyond me.. i do know why they are there but i think there ae better ways to create exits for emergency / tow vehicles.. about the ony thing good to come out of that was the fact that the emergency vehicle were 10 feet away in the opening he had just hit!
That is one of the things that is always a catch 22 that tracks have to deal with. It’s there so the safety vehicles can be spread across the facility with easy access to the track, but if you put some kind of gate/barrier there you run into the potential problem of it not being able to be opened for whatever reason when it needs to be opened quickly to get to a burning car.
The only thing I can really think of that would make it safer design wise is if it were laid out like the one on the back stretch of Martinsville were the old pit road used to be, where the safety vehicles sit now during the race.
As much as I think JG whines a lot, he has every reason to complain here. There’s no excuse for not having the SAFER barrier on all inside and outside walls around the tracks, regardless of the expense to the tracks.
Agree that they should just have nooks in the wall like Martinsville where the safety vehicles can sit, and they’re protected, but they can pop out quickly when needed.
man ol man that was a hard lick the number 24 chevy took, i cant believe the whole raditor was lying on the track. Bruton Smith has more money then anyone on this website can ever hope to see. The safer barriers need to be on the inside wall, and soemthing need to be done with the openings on the track. i agree they need to be they and they d have a purpose, like fisha said above its a catch 22. however the way the tracks have the opening already set up with an over laping system, with the addition of the safer barrier, well help keep hits like the one jeff took down to a minimum. Man that was a bad hit lol. glad he walked away because when i sawit i had my doubts, but it just goes to show how safe those car really are.
Driving a race car of any kind is NOT SAFE. It is a inherently dangerous sport and all drivers are aware
of that from the 1st time they put a tire on a track.
That stated can it be made 100% safe, NO WAY… If you watch Back in the Day you will see some of the old guys going up and over the outer track barriers and into the parking lot at 150 + mph.
Now at that time I would guess they felt fairly safe racing because that was the norm then but improvements were made and will always be made to improve safety.
Track owners dragged there feet to put even 100ft. of safer wall in when it became available but now it’s in a lot of tracks and will be in all soon. COST is a big factor to them and that will always be.
Safety comes with a price tag that the tracks must absorb and will as $$ become available.
To say that NO Price for safety is to high to pay is a lofty statement easy to say for those who are not paying the bills.
Remember, as our resident expert on track conditions (fisha696) said ” As a driver if you think the track is not safe to race on, then just pull off !!!
I am glad to see the JG is ok, that was a helluva hit! I don’t think I have ever seen the radiator get slung from the car like that.
That was a scary moment in my mind.JG could’ve been hurt a lot worse and I think they need to step up and take responsibility by fixing that wall.I know they want more then one race there but I think some reconstruction needs to be done before nascar approves it.
Shawn, go back and look at the KINGS wreck, where when he stopped on the track, the only thing left of the car was the roll cage, with Richard inside. And then he gets hit again by another car. How he survived that crash, well, if you can find it somewhere, just look at it. It was shown for several days after it happened. And as for JG, he’s made mucho bucks racing in the NASCAR series, why doesn’t he donate funds to help install the safer barrier in those areas, since he is the one who is going to be hitting them and tearing them up, expecting track owners to pay the bills. And as fisha696 said, if you ain’t happy about the condition of the track, no one is holding a gun to your head to make you race in a unsafe track, oh, that’s right, I forgot, those people who are called sponsor’s. who pay the driver’s BIG bucks, they want their product displayed on the car and for the car to run the race, they main reason why we have 35 who don’t have to qualify each week. And as I have said before, give each driver the number of points each lap for the position he is in, and real quick you will have everyone racing to be in 1st place and also make everyone run qualifications to see which 43 will race. No free handout’s, it’s called racing, not freebies racing……..
OMG! Of course he complains only after it affects HIM directly! Had it not been him, he wouldn’t have said a word and we all know it. If this was that big of an issue as he is making it out to be now, where has he been(and other drivers if that’s what they think), all the time since the safer barriers have been put up? He’s just a whiner and acts like a big baby when something doesn’t go his way, everytime. Hell, he didn’t even take full blame on the wreck, when it was clearly all him!
Now all of us are going to get in here and start debating this, just because he’s acting all butt hurt. Well, you know he’s been driving these cars, at these speeds, with these walls and LESS, for how many years????
Once again, ________________ speaks, and everyone starts scrathing their heads. Sorry, but there is no reason to put the safer barrier up on inside walls that are way on the inside, that usually are not struck withen certain areas. Sure there is always a first, but he’s just trying to direct blame somewhere other them himself. Obviously, big heads and engineers went over this and had looked at taking care of inside walls as well as outside. After Earnhardt died, safety to the driver in whole was totally looked at. If engineers and big shots deemed this was the way, then they did their job. Its not up to Jeff __________ Gordon to decide everything in this sport as he likes to think he has control of.
Man, what a ____. He friggen deserved to have his ass drop kicked. And I don’t care what other opinions are in response to this, because I know certain people are gonna just throw a fit over MY OPINION. He is the biggest crybaby there is. But you watch, just like Martinsville and him stopping the race because debris hit his car from a pothole, they’ll bow to him and get this. What a crock. If had hadn’t been trying to punt Kenseth, if he had more patience, if he weren’t so selfish and stupid, THAT wouldn’t had happened. Take responsibility for YOUR actions for once Gordon.
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I laughed my ___ off when he wrecked and it was the best thing that happened during the entire race! To bad he wasn’t hurt worse and that johnson didn’t smack right into him afterwards!
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It’s kind of like an unwritten law in auto racing; when you get into the sport, get your racing licence and race week in and week out in the cars, your liable for getting hurt..not sure if that’s the right word to use, but that’s what I mean. You should know right from the beginning that your tempting death every week when your in those cars.
As much as the track is at fault, it was a choice to get in to the car. Before I go on the track I check my stuff and the track, I know I am in a fairly slow car on a ¼ mile dirt track but I still do it, if I see anything I don’t think is safe I don’t race until it is fixed. They have been going to that track for years, and they had nothing at that wall maybe someone should have said something last year. Few people take safety seriously till they see something happen, or something happens to them.
Chevetteracer…. Exactly!!
Its like you hear people saying “Wow. That’s something that you see on tv not in your own house or backyard”. Even though they knew they moved into a crime riddeled neighborehood or the pedophile living next door. Yet, they only say that or care after its brought into their own house. Stupid.
Like I said. They have had the safer barriers for how long and he only now complains? He’s been driving for how long and he didn’t have an issue before this. He wouldn’t have said a word had it been some other driver. Get over it, you wrecked, you did it, your fault, you are to blame, not the wall, not the officials, not the car, not the other driver, not the big shots, sponsors, track owners, etc. YOUR fault. Suck it up and go.
Lots of drivers have said that there should be safer barriers all around the outside and inside of the track and they have been saying that since NASCAR introduced the safer barriers.
grissom @ hotlanta and Fuller @ kentucky come to mind. Openings either need SAFER, tires, a gate (see NHRA), or any/all of the above.
sponsers aside the driver are payed to do a job and need to be on the track racing, however NASCAR has a responsibility to protect the drivers. i know its a one in a million shot that jeff gordon took this sunday. i know that a hundred races can take place at a track and a car never hit the inside wall. but all it takes in one time and do we really need a death to relize that some form of safe barriers need to be put in place on the inside walls. That was as nasty of a hit ive seen in a long time in NASCAR and the safer barriers are the reason for that. The drivers should not have to fund or pay for this like someone said above. NASCAR or the track owners need to take care of this problem. It a dangourus sport we all relize it, but if every effort can be made to make the drivers safe, why not do it? thats my question.
First and foremost, Jeffy caused the wreck. Did he mean to? Probably not. Did he pay for his mistake? Absolutely. But now that he’s got a new wife and daughter, he’s reassessing track safety. I wish all the tracks had them (SAFER barriers) on the top and bottom too. But that might mean higher ticket prices because they won’t short the purse to pay for it. That’s just my opinion.
BOY YOU PEOPLE ARE SOMETHING ELSE, I WISH THAT THAT WAS ONE OF YOUR FAMILY IN THAT CAR BECAUSE YOU WOULDNT BE COMMENTING THE WAY YOU ARE IF IT WAS. IF YOU ONLY READ WHAT YOU WROTE YOU WONDER WHY NASCAR FANS ARE CALLED A BUNCH OF IGNORANT REDNECKS. LET ME GET A 350 LB LINEBACKER AND YOU STAND THERE AND LET HIM HIT YOU WITH EVERYTHING HE HAS AND SEE HOW YOU FEEL WHEN AND IF YOU GET UP. THE GUY WAS HURTING AND YOU TAKE IT AS WHINING. THE SAME PEOPLE DID THAT WHEN DALE SR. HIT THE WALL . I HEARD THE CHEERS IN THE GRANDSTAND AND THE SAME PEOPLE WHO WERE CHEERING WHEN HE CRASHED WER CRYING WHEN THEY FOUND OUT HE WAS DEAD .
Howie motorsports photography
Mar 3rd, 2008 at 5:37 pm Quote
BOY YOU PEOPLE ARE SOMETHING ELSE, I WISH THAT THAT WAS ONE OF YOUR FAMILY IN THAT CAR BECAUSE YOU WOULDNT BE COMMENTING THE WAY YOU ARE IF IT WAS. IF YOU ONLY READ WHAT YOU WROTE YOU WONDER WHY NASCAR FANS ARE CALLED A BUNCH OF IGNORANT REDNECKS. LET ME GET A 350 LB LINEBACKER AND YOU STAND THERE AND LET HIM HIT YOU WITH EVERYTHING HE HAS AND SEE HOW YOU FEEL WHEN AND IF YOU GET UP. THE GUY WAS HURTING AND YOU TAKE IT AS WHINING. THE SAME PEOPLE DID THAT WHEN DALE SR. HIT THE WALL . I HEARD THE CHEERS IN THE GRANDSTAND AND THE SAME PEOPLE WHO WERE CHEERING WHEN HE CRASHED WER CRYING WHEN THEY FOUND OUT HE WAS DEAD
amen brother, i cant stand HMS or Gordon but i would never want any driver to be hurt in wreck, but what can you do? some people are just peices of crap.
My point was nothing about whining, it was they should look at safety before something happens, as a racer your safety is still your responsibility. You should look at the track and mention concerns about walls before something happens not after you discover that hitting that opening will destroy your car.