Three times in the last four years I have been at Daytona for the start of the 500. However, the only time I’ve seen the finish is on television replays, as we always depart the airport before the checker falls to avoid the mobs leaving both track and airport. This year was no different, and we were taking off from the runway about the same time Tony Stewart was taking off on the backstretch. Fortunately our landing in Minneapolis 3 hours later was a little smoother than was Stewart’s. I picked up the race results from an Atlanta radio station, but it wasn’t until we landed that we heard about Dale Earnhardt’s tragic death. The uproar that followed is certainly an indication of NASCAR’s huge gains in popularity in recent years. The loss of Davey Allison was a sad story, but it certainly didn’t make the cover of TIME. I can’t call myself a rabid Earnhardt fan, but the man certainly commanded respect on the racetrack. This year at Daytona I only saw about 65 laps of live racing, but it was interesting. The aerodynamic changes made before last year’s Talladega race seemed to have the desired effect, with cars running in tight packs and two or three abreast in the corners. With only a third of the race gone, I was called on to command a pair of golf carts and pick up baggage from a bus in the lot in front			of the track and trundle it a couple miles back to the airport to load our pair of airplanes. That was the end of my live race viewing for the day. But even in those early laps Dale was up to his usual tactics of bumping and blocking, with even more of the same evident when I watched the tape replay the next day. It is entirely possible that sometime during these on-track shenanigans, Earnhardt’s 5 point harness was either loosened or entirely unlatched. I cannot for a minute buy off on the theory that the impact into the turn 3 wall broke a Simpson lap belt. I have crash tested a couple of those units and they can take a beating and keep on restraining. Much has been made of the problems associated with hitting the wall at 180 mph, but a review of the tape shows actual impact at about a 45 degree angle and perhaps a 30 mph closure. Sure there are serious g-forces associated with such an impact, but the intensity pales when compared to Stewart’s wild ride or some other Earnhardt smashups from years past. But for whatever reason, Dale’s head met the steering wheel with fatal result. Another factor could have been the open face helmet which unbelievably is still the choice of Dale Jr., whose crash the next week at Rockingham was eerily similar to his Dad’s. Years ago Brian Anderson gave me a pamphlet on the HANS device that he had been working on while employed by Jim Downing in Atlanta. Local Trans-Am driver Leighton Reese uses one, along with a large number of professional road racers. The item is not cheap, but a couple grand can be a bargain if it saves a life or prevents potentially paralyzing injury. I’m still putting together the funds to replace my outdated race  Fubar, continued on page 5		LOL Board of Directors Regional Exceutive Greg Youngdahl Home (507) 332-0297 gregy@deskmedia.com Assistant Regional Executive Rob Woolston Home:(651) 739-7837 Robert.Woolston@Unisys.com Secretary Shannon Murphy Home: (612) 798-3575 blueflagger@yahoo.com Treasurer Mark LaBarre Home: (651) 407-7293 mlabarre@usfamily.net Members at Large John Daniels Home: (612) 377-8403 j.danielsjr@all.net Doug Dill Home: (612) 925-1731 dougd@edsonline.com Chad Lemmons Home: (651) 688-7976 John Niemi Home: (651) 766-8027 captmayday@aol.com Randy Van De Loo Home: (612) 729-1949 randy@winning.com LOL Web Page: http://www.scca-lol.org LOL Hotline: 612-885-6888

---

Tonneau On-Line	April 2001	Page 2
Copyright 2001, Land O'Lakes Region	Last revised: March 13, 2003	| Front | Next Page |