Welcome to RacingCrashes.net. Here you will find tons of information on race car crashes, the drivers involved, the tracks the crashes happened on and much more. RacingCrashes.net wants to be your place to find news on all things relating to racing cars. We’ll focus on Nascar and Formula One. These are the most popular car races and have the most memorable car crashes. Never a pretty sight but always worth noting. Below is an excerpt from an article that you can find here:
What is still the most famous and deadly car crash in motor car racing history, is the 1955 Le Mans disaster. The crash happened during the 1955 running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans motor race. It is was the 23rd Gran Prix of Endurance. The driver, a Frenchman named Pierre Levegh was killed, as were 83 spectators and nearly 120 were injured.
The crash was so spectacular in part because cars were built with very dense material. When Levegh’s car hit the wall the car broke into many huge pieces. Levegh was killed instantly, but much of the car flew into the crowd. Flying chunks of race car killed 83 people and injured nearly 120 spectators. It’s the most costly crash in terms of loss of life and injury in motor-sports history.
This accident, led to great changes in the safety measures taken to protect drivers and spectators. What was left in the aftermath of this horrendous event, was tremendous fear. It was this fear that led many car manufacturers to pull out of racing their cars in motor-sports. The country of Switzerland even banned all motor car races, where more than one car was on the track at a time. This ban stayed in place for decades. It wasn’t until June of 2007 that the ban was lifted.
Other racing crashes that have changed motor-sport and vehicle safety and design involve a number of highly successful race car drivers. For example, Dale Earnhardt was a very popular American race car driver who won 7 championships driving stock cars for NASCAR. He was involved in a car accident during the last lap of the Daytona 500 in February of 2001. He was pronounced dead several hours later after sustaining blunt force trauma to the head. Earnhardt was 49.
It was a highly publicized event and a call for change came from many. Earnhardt’s death resulted in both a police investigation and a NASCAR-sanctioned investigation. In an unprecedented event, NASCAR permitted nearly every detail of their investigation to be made public. The result was NASCAR enforcing a rule that required the use of the HANS device, or head restraint, in all race cars to prevent head and neck injuries.
One other outstanding improvement in race safety that has, to some extent, been brought to commercial vehicles, is the safety cage that surrounds the driver. The cage works by remaining intact during an impact while the rest of the car falls away as it’s hit.
The consequence of this design is dramatically slowed vehicle velocity. The car comes to a stop more quickly. As well, the driver is protected within a frame of impenetrable metal. The car exterior peels away from the driver’s cage as it’s being hit instead of crashing into the driver. This design saves lives.