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CART drivers refuse to race

Hours before the start they say the steep banking at Texas Motor Speedway was causing vertigo.

Compiled from Times wires

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 30, 2001

FORT WORTH, Texas -- At a time when safety concerns in NASCAR are at the forefront after four driver deaths in the past 11 months, CART drivers refused Sunday to compete at Texas Motor Speedway, saying G forces almost twice as high as normal were causing vision and hearing problems.

The drivers balked after holding a lengthy meeting hours before the inaugural Firestone Firehawk 600. Some complained of vertigo during practice sessions.

"The G forces were beyond what I could have ever imagined," said Michael Andretti, the biggest winner in CART history. "This is something we never thought of happening."

Series officials said there wasn't enough time to make changes and postponed the race just before its scheduled start. CART CEO Joseph Heitzler said the sanctioning body was considering rescheduling the event at the 1.5-mile track for later in the year.

"CART has come forward and really stood up for the drivers," driver Tony Kanaan said. "Everybody in the CART community, the manufacturers and the sponsors alike, are behind us on this one. But I especially want to give credit to Joe Heitzler for doing the right thing." Teams said G forces were above 5 -- G forces in the range of 3 are generally as high as drivers pull on most racetracks -- and that all but four of the 26 drivers experienced some sort of inner-ear or vision problems after running more than 10 laps at a time.

"The Gs were exceeding what the human body should be able to tolerate," said Dr. Steve Olvey, CART director of medical services.

Initially most drivers thought they were alone in their feelings about racing, but then began a dialogue that grew into virtual unanimity.

"When you saw 24 hands go up, everyone was silent," Bryan Herta said.

Series officials were caught off-guard by the impact of the 24-degree banking. By comparison, the banking at Indianapolis is 9 degrees, and no other track in the CART series is steeper than 18.

Heitzler refused to blame the track.

"This is not an issue of safety at this track," he said. "This was safety of the drivers in their performance of their skills."

The track had no input into the discussions Sunday morning, general manager Eddie Gossage said. But he was critical of CART for its dealings with the track.

"The bottom line is, CART should have known," Gossage said. "We questioned speed in letters, we even offered some of our own suggestions."

Gossage said he received a letter April 21 from Heitzler, in response to questions raised by speedway officials, that read: "CART is ready, willing and able to run the race."

There was no open testing, and the standard accepted by CART was the 220-224-mph range Kenny Brack established in a private test. Brack won the pole at 233.447 mph.

Texas Motor Speedway had made some changes requested by CART and based on closed testing by several teams. That included smoothing of the track in several areas and the addition of a wall just inside pit lane.

"It should have been sufficiently tested months and months and months ago," Gossage said. The postponement comes less than three months after NASCAR star Dale Earnhardt died in a last-lap crash in the season-opening Daytona 500.

Four NASCAR drivers have died from similar head and neck injuries since May. That includes Craftsman Truck driver Tony Roper, who died after a crash in October at Texas Motor Speedway.

CART mandates use of the HANS (head and neck support) device, made to prevent basal skull fractures, on all oval tracks at which it competes. NASCAR and the Indy Racing League do not. Talk swirled of a NASCAR driver's boycott at Talladega Superspeedway, site of the April 22 Talladega 500, because of safety issues.

It marked the first race in which horsepower-limiting restrictor plates and NASCAR's aerodynamic rules package, designed to slows cars and improve competition, had been used since Earnhardt's death on Feb. 18.

Drivers' fears were eased when the race finished without a caution flag. Sunday's postponement is not the first over safety in CART.

A race at Michigan International Speedway was put off in 1985 because of concerns over the radial tires Goodyear was to introduce on the circuit. After three accidents before the race, several drivers refused to compete.

Goodyear solved the problem by withdrawing the radials, and the race was run safely six days later with bias-ply tires.

NASCAR stars staged the only boycott in the sanctioning body's history over tire concerns before the inaugural race in Talladega, Ala., in 1969.

Replacements were used and the race was completed without major problems.

Near-boycotts have brought changes in Formula One, where several drivers died in the formative years of the sport. The most well-documented change was the insertion of a chicane at the high-speed Tamburello curve in Imola, Italy, where F1 great Ayrton Senna was killed during the San Marino Grand Prix in 1994. CART drivers met last year after Patrick Carpentier crashed in practice for the Honda Grand Prix of Monterey in Laguna Seca, Calif. One year earlier, rookie Gonzalo Rodriguez was killed while practicing on that track.

Changes were made to the road course last year, and the race went on.

Texas Motor Speedway is owned by Speedway Motorsports Inc., and underwent some remilling and widening of its fourth turn after NASCAR drivers complained about safety when they first began racing there in 1997.

- Staff writer Kevin Kelly contributed to this report.

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