Indy 1992

[Crash Test]

Well i was up all night watching a tape of the 1992 Indy 500....and wow, what a terrible and strange and fantastic race all in one big ball! As we all know it was freezing on the 24th of May 1992, and this brought pole man Roberto Guerrero unstuck half way down the back straight on the pace lap. Michael Andretti jumped into the lead, and took off, not to be touched by anyone until his engine blew within sight of the flag. It was then for the run to the flag betweem Little Al and Scott Goodyear, with Al winning in the shortest finnishing margain ever. Big Al came in 3rd.

But sadly there were many accidents, with a LOT of drivers winding up in hospital with injuries.

This brings me to my point, boy, how have times changed?! The cars have changed sooo much in the last 8 years in terms of safety...some of the shunts which broke bones in 1992 wouldn't worry the modern day drivers.

The tracks themselves. Indy didn't have a warm up lane until 93, and the cars were running on the apron, brushing past cars exiting the pits. As well, there were the dangers of running those speeds on the aprons...

The walls around the track were sooo low...and at the exit of the pit lane there was a wall at right angles to the track.

The grass on the back stretch wasn't very wide, only a car width or two between the track and the wall.

There was no pit speed limit, and several people got hurt in the pits.

The field was mostly Americans.

The quality of the TV coverage back then was shocking. The camera angles had tress/grandstands/people/blimps in the way of the what was being filmed, plus there was no live lap scoring, just very basic read outs, layed over the top of the pictures.

OK, so what do you consider to be the best (and the worst) changes in this time? What would you have done differently/wish had(n't) changed? This is not Indy specific, not IRL/Cart, just the racing cars/tracks/drivers.

[fastracer]

Obviously the best changes were: adding a warm up lane, putting a speed limit in the pits, and anything else that improved safety. Also improving the TV coverage helps a little.

[Jay]

I watched a 1 hour program about safety in Indy Cars, and one of the biggest changes actually was in the design of the front of the car. In the early nineties there were a ton of leg and foot injuries because the front bulkheads did not do their jobs. I do not remember all of the details, but the nose cones and front of the car have been redesigned, adding more impact absorbing material, and now broken feet or legs are not as common.

[Jared]

Jay, that is right. If you have noticed, the majority of injuries from years ago were to the feet and legs of the drivers, as the cars would spin and hit the wall head on. Then came the upper leg injuries caused by the suspension arms penetrating the cockpit. Most recently, the rash of injuries has been to the back and neck, since the cars are only doing a quarter-spin and hitting the wall with the back end. As the speeds of the cars have risen, the accidents are different, as are the injuries.