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BRANT JAMESAn OSHA report could set off a litany of litigation regarding an accident that took a track worker's life.
Nearly five months after safety worker Roy Weaver III was struck and killed during an otherwise nondescript minor-circuit stock car race at Daytona International Speedway, neither the family, the track nor its parent company, International Speedway Corp., has a full understanding of what factors led to his death.
And they are not willing to discuss what they do know until the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issues a report on Aug. 8 that will either settle the matter or potentially launch a barrage of litigation.
OSHA, by rule, files accident reports within six months of a workplace death. Though ISC and the IPOWER DASH Series, which was racing at the track on Feb. 8 when the accident occurred, conducted investigations, they are waiting to take OSHA's lead.
"We have not heard anything yet," ISC spokesman David Talley said. "Once we get the report, we will huddle and go from there."
Department of Labor spokesman Dan Fuqua said there was "no ETA" on the OSHA report, which will attempt to ascertain why Weaver, a seven-year safety worker and a supervisor at DIS, was standing on the track near Turn 2 during a caution when driver Ray Paprota sped off pit road and struck him.
"There's no way I can comment on any of it," Fuqua said.
Though Weaver's widow, Linda, has not sued any of the involved parties, she is being advised by Tallahassee attorney Rob Clark. Lost in the details of the accident is a homemaker with three teenage children still struggling for answers and ways to cope. She is considering taking a job as a teacher this fall, Clark said.
Though Weaver, whose husband was a former equipment manager with the Bucs, wants to talk about the case, mainly so people remember her husband, she defers to Clark's wishes not to discuss it.
"I really want to talk about it," she said on Friday from her Ormond Beach home. "But I'm afraid I'm going to mess something up."
NASCAR chairman Brian France, whose family owns controlling interest in ISC, said in February that the company should provide some financial relief for the Weaver family. Nothing has yet been done.
NASCAR has attempted to distance itself from the incident since it occurred, though it happened during Speedweeks, the precursor to the season-opening Daytona 500. NASCAR had been affiliated with the Dash series until before the start of this season.
OSHA has myriad possible contributing factors to untangle.
The control tower - the press box vantage point where race directors issue cautions and dispatch emergency vehicles - was run by 72-year-old coordinator Jim Bockoven until he retired after Speedweeks, but ISC chairman Bill France suggested in the Feb. 16 Daytona Beach News-Journal that Weaver broke from procedure by chasing a blowing piece of debris up the track, putting himself in jeopardy.
Clark strongly disagreed, citing interviews with track employees.
"We think we'll be able to establish failure to adhere to standard safety protocols," Clark said. "Witnesses we talked to did not support that a day or two after the fact."
Coincidently, DIS announced a new emergency services plan to track workers on Saturday, days before the second-biggest week of racing - a Nextel Cup, Busch and Grand Am event - are staged at the track this weekend. Track observers stationed on platforms around the 2.5-mile quad-oval will be responsible for watching on-track safety workers and for the first time will have radio contact with them.
"None of the changes we made are a result of that accident," Ernie Thurston, DIS director of emergency services told NASCAR.com. "This is just something that needed to be done."
An immediate target of blame after the accident was Paprota, a 41-year-old paraplegic and world-renowed wheelchair athlete from Birmingham, Ala., who had recently been sanctioned to drive superspeedways with a car controlled with hand levers. Paprota, however, was supported by fellow drivers in the race, cleared of blame by local authorities and has competed in the subsequent three Dash Series races.
The sequence began when a fiery wreck occurred on the far side of the track, diverting attention and emergency personnel away from where Weaver would eventually be struck. Ten laps into the caution, Paprota, who could not start the race on time because of a dead battery, sped off pit road to rejoin the field under caution. Many racing series would not have allowed him to join a race he could not start on time.
Weaver was on the track in Turn 2 when Paprota exited pit road around the sharp corner, where drivers are typically traveling in excess of 100 mph. Weaver was killed instantly. He was the 36th person killed on the speedway, but the first track worker.