Countless lives were saved yesterday by a fence.
That's right, a fence. But this isn't your common, everyday white picket fence, it is referred to by NASCAR officials as the "catchfence". This fence surrounds the track, particularly in front of the massive crowds that venture their ways to the speedways to cheer on their favorite drive. These fences were created to stop large pieces of debris from becoming unattached from cars and ending up in the crowd's lap. The fact of the matter is this, take a crash at 200 miles per hour, have a wheel come off and shoot it into the crowd and it is a fatal projectile sure to take more than a few lives.
It's not common for crowds to show up in numbers of excess of 100,000 to these events, making a crash into the stands a potentially tragic and horrific scene. This is why NASCAR and safety researchers created the catchfence to be put around the track and reinforce it where there are fans. But with nothing to really test it, as 99% of crashes stay on the track, it is almost impossible to tell what a full speed crash would do to these fences. Would it hold against the weight of a car? Sure the fence might be strong enough to take a tire or something that isn't a two ton hunk of metal spiraling through the air. Well let's set the scene for Sunday's NASCAR race at Talledega and show you how a fence turned certain death for hundreds of fans into minor injuries for only 8 spectators.
Carl Edwards and rookie Brad Keselowski are bumper-to-bumper during the final lap of a wreck filled race. Already there has been two accidents that have involved at least ten cars and what was about to occur next would have fans kissing the feet of the men and women who designed this fence. Edwards was in the lead going into the final turn as Keselowski was hooked onto his bumper, looking for that one opportunity to make a pass.
Keselowski went down. Edwards with the block. Keselowski went up. Edwards went for the block. But as Edwards went for the block, Keselowski made his move back down to the inside part of the track, poised for the pass on Edwards. As Edwards came down for the block, Keselowski was already inside of him, pitting his back side against the other driver's hood, sending Edwards sliding to the left.
In order to slow cars down during a crash, racecar engineers installed flaps on the roof, much like on the wings on an airplane to slow it down during the landing. Well these flaps caught the air flow around his car moving sideways and lifted his back end up off the ground. This would've been fine except for the car behind Edwards had too little room to do anything and ended up being a catapult to Edward's car. Edwards's car began to fly through the air end over end and it was going toward the crowd for almost certain death.
But a metal fence stood between the crowd and Edward's flying car taking the full force of the accident, bending back as this car hit it going 140 miles per hour in the air.
It didn't break. It did it's job.
Edwards was able to climb out of his car as it came to a rest short of the finish line and he ran across it to get the points, alas shades of Ricky Bobby. But looking at his car and watching the crash from all different angles has to leave fans wondering what if. What if that fence didn't hold, what if the car made its way through that barrier and ended up crushing many helpless fans on the front row?
All of that goes back to thanking their lucky stars that individuals were able to create a fence strong enough to take the blow of a carsh this intense and not break. Now, each driver and fan has their own opinion of the crash and the safety equipment, but the bottom line is this: Edwards was able to walk away from a crash where his car flew through the air and hit a metal fence at 140 miles per hour. Fans in the path of this metal tornado were able to go home and tell the story of their survival, about the fence that saved their life.
Countless lives were saved by a fence yesterday. Who knows what would've happened had it failed to stay standing.
That is incredible!
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