The History of Safety and Design in Motor Sport

Safety and Design in Motor Sport

Motor racing is often considered to be the most 'dangerous' sport. Certainly it is one of the only sports where the act of competing is inherently risky. The forces involved are only briefly approached by other popular sports - a few baseball players have been killed by 'fastballs', footballers get broken legs from tackles, cricketers wear helmets when batting against fast bowlers. Activities like skiing, horse riding and cycling are potentially very dangerous, although this is more because of the amount of amateur competitions going on - at the highest levels of competition there are rarely deaths. But the truth is that there are rarely fatalities in motor racing much these days - the sport is light years ahead of where it once was in terms of protecting it's competitors. In fact it has reached a stage where drivers can quip that they are probably at more risk driving to the races on the public road than they are on the track.

For all that motor racing has a deserved reputation for once having been lethally dangerous that does not mean that the people involved were not concerned with safety. In fact safety in motor sport goes right back to the earliest days. In 1903 the epic Paris to Madrid race was stopped short of the finish after several shocking crashes that left five competitors and three spectators dead. One crash occurred when a car swerved to avoid a boy running into the road and killed a policeman, another claimed the famous driver Marcel Renault (one of the founders of the eponymous car company) who overturned and was killed. The public outcry was considerable, newspapers were divided on whether to support the burgeoning motor racing events, and politicians who had supported the race were asked to explain themselves and whether they had tried hard enough to ensure safety.

So safety was not far from people minds even when drivers and their riding mechanics sat in giant wooden cars, with a huge petrol tank behind their heads, with skinny tyres made from solid blocks of rubber, and drove as fast as they could down dusty unpaved roads, inches from ditches and trees. The problem was that the technology simply didn't exist to make things any safer. Cars were huge and ungainly because they couldn't be made any smaller, and the only way for engineers to increase power from engines was to make them bigger. The bigger the cylinder capacity the greater the horsepower, and soon engines designed for use on aeroplanes were being shoehorned into cars. These monsters could get up to 100mph in a straight line, but still ran on wooden horse cart wheels. The potential for disasters was inherent and the only way to reduce risk was for the car to develop into a more sophisticated machine.

Most early European races were on public roads, either between cities or in large circuits around the countryside. The only place in the continent where this didn't apply was in Britain. The government of Edwardian Britain did not approve of the continental habit of road racing at all. Ever since the earliest days of cars the speed limit had been set at 20mph and road racing had been outlawed. The only exception, thanks the curiosities of the British parliamentary system, was on the Isle of Man, where the independent government decided to buck the trend and allow racing on it's roads (and also to not have a speed limit). Over one hundred years later the Isle of Man TT motorcycle races remain both some of the most dangerous races in the world, and by far the island's main source of tourist income - thus proving that both sets of policy makers had a valid point of view.

With the public roads out of bounds Britain's wannabe car racers either had to travel across the channel to France - the racing hotbed - or had to try something different; build their own road. In 1907 the wealthy Surrey landowner Huge Locke-King (with the assistance of some of Mrs. Locke-King's family money) built a giant racing track on his land at Brooklands, near Weybridge, south of London. Brooklands was an enormous undertaking; it was 2.75 miles around the track, the two banked turns were thirty foot high, and there was space for 200,000 spectators in the infield grounds (which also contained an airfield) Brooklands wasn't just about hosting races - it was also intended to provide a high speed testing facility for Britains many motor companies. As asphalt was still expensive and complicated to lay concrete was used for the surface. This meant that over the years Brooklands became a rather bumpy ride, but still the huge oval track became a Mecca for the British car industry and the British could finally keep up with the French and Germans and host a Grand Prix.

Although the occasional horse racing dirt track had been used before for motor racing (the Milwaukee Mile in Wisconsin has the distinction of being the world's oldest motor racing course), Brooklands was the first purpose-built racing track. It was such a brave new world that the first races were based on the protocols of horse racing; drivers wore coloured silks and cars lined up wheel to wheel on the start line rather than behind each other on the grid that would become familiar in later years. Brooklands successful operation, and the profits created by charging spectators for admission and car makers for use of the track inspired entrepreneurs in other countries to follow suit. In the small American city of Indianapolis local businessman Carl Fisher, who had made a fortune with his car dealerships and parts businesses, built the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1909. Like Brooklands it was 2.5 miles round, had banked turns, space for a huge crowd, and was intended for racing and car testing.

After making losses on several racing events throughout the year Fisher decided to host one big race, over five hundred miles, and with a huge prize fund - the Indianapolis "500", as it was almost immediately known. In Italy the Monza Autodromo in Milan was built to a similar template a decade later, and the French built a course at Monthlery south of Paris. Road racing events would continue, albeit never quite on the epic scale of the city to city races, but closed circuits helped make motor racing a more legitimate sport. Spectator safety was more manageable, people no longer crowded around at the edges of the roads. Circuit owners could rake in enough money to pay racers large prize funds - less reliance was placed on newspapers and other sponsors to come in an pay the costs of hosting races. Races could be organised for different classes of car, drivers could be tested and licensed for competence, and all cars were inspected for defects and road-worthiness.

Driver deaths still occurred, but this was a world where deaths in general were a much more frequent occurance. Many great drivers of the earliest days died in action in the Great War, others then died in the great flu epidemic of 1918. The great British driver Tim Birkin died not in a crash but of blood poisoning after burning his arm on his car's hot exhaust. Drivers were seen as heroic daredevils, honorable men (and often women, for racing authorities were often surprisingly liberal compared to the attitudes of their times in allowing women to race, although often the women were aristocrats and had far more power and money than the racing organisers) who upheld the pride of their countries. In Britain drivers such as Malcolm Campbell and Henry Segrave were knighted for setting speed records.

For half a century the attitude most drivers had to crashes was to be thrown clear. Much like a modern motorcyclist or horse rider the drivers sat more on their cars than in them. Perched high up and completely exposed drivers would drive far more in their comfort zone than todays racers. Drivers rarely pushed to 100% in a race for the sake of self-preservation. On the skinny tyres of the day the driver had far more input to how the car would handle in a corner as opposed to todays drivers who have the luxury of almost unlimited grip and who usually turn in and hang on. Plus the cars were far less reliable, even relative sprint races like the Grand Prix's drivers had to drive to take care of their car, to avoid breaking down. Some drivers gained a reputation for taking reckless risks - the great 1930s driver Tazio Nuvolari in particular was often jokingly rumoured to have a pact with the devil, Others were more considered - today the 1950s Grand Prix driver Tony Brooks recalls how he nearly always drove within his limits and refused to push to make up the deficits on an inferior car. In 1958 Brooks raced against two drivers - Luigi Musso and Peter Collins who both died in crashes when they seemed to push too hard - Musso running off the road in Reims, and Collins overturning and hitting a tree at the Nurburgring. Not all drivers were 'gentlemanly' and sporting either, despite the obvious risks involved in car to car contact - the first world champion Giuseppe Farina was known as a blocker.

As in the earliest days the safety of spectators during the years after the Second World War took priority over the drivers. British circuits would remind the spectators that the earth bank - solid and potentially deadly for the drivers - were there for their protection and to not climb on them. This laissez-faire attitude to spectator safety would come to a sudden halt a Le Mans in 1955. Le Mans had begun in 1923 as a twenty four hour challenge on the public roads. Earliest races were more like motor rallies than high speed races, but by the 1950s the cars were capable of 150mph+ on the long straights. For 1955 the race had become a globally prestigious race where car manufactures were no longer sending modified road cars but sent exotic purpose built race cars. The circuit itself had barely changed. the start line was two lanes wide, the the pit lane a marked off area at the side of the road. across the road the grandstands where the spectators would crowd in for the opening and closing hours of the race were protected by an earth bank. three hours into the race disaster struck; Mike Hawthorn headed his leading Jaguar into the pit, behind him the slower Healey of Lance Macklin seemed surprised by Hawthorn suddenly slowing and swerved left to avoid him. right behind Macklin was the Mercedes of Pierre Levegh who had no time to react before crashing into the back of the Healey. The Mercedes flew into the air, over the bank and broke apart.

The car's engine and suspension flew through the spectator enclosure and killed over eighty people - including driver Levegh. The fall out from the disaster was considerable - several grand prixs were cancelled, leading to a short calendar of seven races. Racing was banned permanently in switzerland, ending the Swiss Grand Prix, Mercedes-Benz would withdraw from racing at the end of the year and would not return until the late 1980s. 1955 also saw additional tragedies elsewhere - double world champion Alberto Ascari died in a crash testing at Monza, double Indy 500 winner Bill Vukovich died in a crash during the 1955 "500" race. The American Automobile Assocation - the organiser of Indy - would cease all racing activities at the end of the year, handing over to a group created by the Indianapolis Speed; United States Auto Club (USAC). Two years later the great round-Italy road race the Mille Miglia would end when Alfonso de Portago's Ferrari crashed into a crowd killing spectators and the driver. Such was the outcry even the Vatican got involved - the Pope condemning Enzo Ferrari for sending many young men to their deaths in his cars.

The great road races were dying off - the RAC Tourist Trophy left Dundrod in Ulster after a disastrous race, again in 1955, with two drivers killed. Pescara in Italy, Porto and Monsanto Park in Portugal, Pedralbes in Spain, all faded away from the international stage in the 1960s. The 37-mile circuit of the Targa Florio in Sicily survived until 1973 until it became a rally event. Racing increasingly becoming closed circuit racing. This would suit the British racing teams. Ironically the British government's outlawing of road racing had created the environment for British designers to flourish. Brooklands had closed after being converted into a airfield for bomber manufacturing during the war and never reopened. Since they still couldn't race on public roads in England, Scotland, and Wales, British racers took to the many airfields built for the war that dotted the landscape and developed lightweight racers. As major racing migrated away from open roads - with their cobble stones, tramlines and other rough surfaces, the British cars began to run rings around the opposition from Europe and eventually America too.

Ferrari and Maserati had to make space for Cooper, Lotus, BRM and then Mclaren, Brabham, Tyrrell, March and Williams. The key development was placing the car's engine behind the driver rather than in front as in a conventional car. Rear-engined cars had been tried in the 1930s; the fearsome Auto Unions developed by Dr. Ferdinand Porsche (later to create his own company) pioneered the idea, and the innovative American engineer Harry Miller tried a similar idea at Indianapolis, but the cars were too heavy and ungainly for any advantages to be noticed. What the British designers did, with the luxury of super-smooth and spacious airfield racetracks was, in the memorable catchphrase of Lotus's genius engineer Colin Chapman, to 'Simplify and add lightness'. The lightweight Cooper's and Lotuses may have been developed in small lock up garages (by the 'garagistes' as Enzo Ferrari sniffily called them) but they were nimble, quick to accelerate, didn't wear out their tyres, and didn't need a driveshaft between the engine and gearbox - both were next to each other in the back of the car, so the driver could sit low, almost on the ground. Soon even Ferrari had to admit that the future was with the engine behind the driver and abandoned his beloved front-engined cars. Over in America the home grown front-engined 'Roadster' cars that raced in the Indy 500 were blown away in 1965 by a Grand Prix Lotus. The Indy cars would soon become close cousins of Formula One machines.

The newer rear engined cars were undoubtedly more sophisticated than their predecessors but were also quicker and once again the circuits were not keeping up with the cars. The 1961 Italian Grand Prix saw a crash that killed Ferrari driver Wolfgang von Trips and fourteen spectators standing protected by only a bank and a wire fence. The next year the great Stirling Moss's career ended in the crumpled wreck of a Lotus at Goodwood. The new cars were often flimsy as designers realised the benefits of lighter weight for handling, a practice that did not endear them to drivers. Moss had broken his legs and back in a crash in 1960 when a wheel had fallen off his Lotus. At his next birthday party he was presented with a cake in the shape of his Grand Prix car. After blowing his candles out he promptly sliced the car's front wheel off and presented it to Colin Chapman. Fuel tanks were fitted on the sides of the driver's cockpit, often actually moulded into the seat - the driver effectively sitting surrounded by a bath of gasoline. The early stages of the 1964 Indy 500 showed the terrible consequences of these designs. One driver (Dave MacDonald) spun into the inside wall, his car instantly exploding in a fireball, a second driver (Eddie Sachs) plowed broadside into the wreck, his car also exploding. Both drivers died.

Fire had been an ever present danger since the beginning of motor racing. All cars had to carry large tanks of volatile gasoline which all too frequently caught fire in a crash. In the 1960s some basic measures to prevent this problem began to be introduced; rubber fuel bladders developed for military aircraft began to be fitted inside fuel tanks to prevent disastrous ruptures of the tanks. drivers also began to forsake cotton shirts for fire-resistant suits. this measure occasionally helped some drivers escape but just as frequently was a futile gesture as drivers asphyxiated underneath upturned burning cars. USAC racing had realised the inherent danger of gasoline and had specified all their cars used less volatile alcohol fuels, Grand Prix racing and NASCAR stuck with gasoline, often with appalling consequences for drivers. At the 1967 Monaco Grand Prix Lorenzo Bandini crashed his Ferrari out of second place late in the race, overturned and was trapped under a burning car. He was eventually dragged free but died in hospital three days later. In the 1968 french driver Jo Schlesser crashed and overturned in a similar manner; his car had a magnesium chassis and the fire marshalls extinguisher's were useless to fight the fire, in fact the chemical reaction between the magnesium and the oxygen in the water actually worsened the situation.

In the late 1960s racing cars began a quantum leap in performance levels that would see cornering speeds leap upwards and racing become about as dangerous as it had ever been. One of the reasons for the performance increase was larger tyres with more grip, but the main one was aerodynamic downforce generated by aerofoils and other devices. The wings on the cars worked the opposite to aeroplane wings - using the air to push the car down to the track. But while the cars were getting faster and faster the tracks were lacking in basic safety features.

The world of motor racing was shocked to it's core in April 1968 when double world champion Jim Clark - undisputed the most naturally gifted driver of his time - died in a crash at the Hockenheim track in Germany. at high speed one of Clark's tyres had punctured and he had spun off the track into trees. there was no barrier or fence between the road and the forest and Clark's car struck one broadside. even drivers hardened to the death of fellows were shaken - for one Clark was undoubtedly the best driver, secondly he was renowned as a driver not prone to recklessness, and third he had died in a minor formula two race, rather than a grand prix. Clark's death was a sobering reminder that death could claim any driver no matter how skilled and at any moment.

Even before Clark's death one of his contemporaries had become quietly resolved to make racing safer - or at least to remove some of it's more needless dangers. At the 1966 Belgian Grand Prix Jackie Stewart - Clark's fellow Scot and protege - crashed in a rain storm. Spa was one of the remaining open road circuits, a high speed eight mile blast around Ardennes countryside between farmhouses, trees and even fields fenced with barbed wire. Stewart spun off the road into a barn and was trapped in his car as it's ruptured fuel tanks gradually leaked fuel into the cockpit. Stewart was freed by two fellow drivers who unbolted his steering wheel and tore away crushed bodywork. as he sat in the rudimentary medical centre contemplating the many stubbed out cigarette ends on the floor Stewart become resolved to make safety a higher priority in the future.

Jackie Stewart began pushing for better facilities at tracks. he advocated a mobile hospital with emergency blood supplies and trauma facilities. he also lobbied for circuits to become safer and remove the the more obvious dangers - telegraph posts, stands of trees, hay bales and other hazards. Stewart's efforts, much lauded today, met with much opposition in the 1960s. For one he was resented by many of the older generation most of whom had seen first hand to horrors of the second world war, and disliked the idea of a young upstart telling them that racing should be subject to rafts of new regulations. For this generation the dangers of racing were almost irrelevant compared to the threats that had been presented to the world during wartime. Secondly improvements to safety would cost money without any obvious financial benefit, most circuit owners were unwilling to commit and there was no commercial pressure to bring them into line as there would come to be in later decades.

In the early 1970s attitudes gradually began to change as the tragedies mounted up; the 1970 world championship was awarded posthumously to Jochen Rindt (killed in a crash at the Italian Grand Prix), Bruce Mclaren, Piers Courage, Jo Siffert, Pedro Rodriguez, Francois Cevert, Peter Revson... top line drivers kept dying in crashes. perhaps the most appalling incident occured at the 1973 Dutch Grand rix. newcomer Roger Williamson crashed and overturned his car when his car's suspension failed. His car caught alight while several marshalls stood by and watched impotently. Another driver, David Purley, who had seen the crash, ran to help turn the car over. As the fire began to rage Purley could hear Williamson call urgently for him to turn the car over. Purley desperately implored the marshalls to join him but they refused, unable to come closer to the burning car in ordinary clothes, and lacking fire extinguishers. By the time the track's fire truck finally arrived at the scene Williamson had axphysiated in his seat. A needless and wasteful tragedy captured for the world by the Dutch TV cameras.

The influence of television and commercial sponsorship likely had an effect on attitudes to safety. Until the 1970s motor races were seldom broadcast on television and deadly crashes rarely seen outside of newsreels. Household names like clark were mourned but viewers did not see them perish live on tv. Similarly as racing cars came to be plastered with corporate logos the drivers became ever more important to the sponsors, and television viewers became more important to those running the sport. By the end of the 1970s all forms of racing were gradually appearing on television, and more and more sponsors from different arenas were appearing on cars. Formula One was coming under the influence of the manager of the Brabham team Bernie Ecclestone who was managing the commercial interests of the sport and brokering deals with circuit owners and television companies. In 1978 Ecclestone was also calling up doctors to consult on safety at the races.

The man Ecclestone chose to be Formula One's medical boss was a world renowned neurosurgeon from the London Hospital; Professor Sid Watkins. Watkins, a life long racing enthusiast, and former track doctor at the American Watkins Glen track, began work on improving the medical facilities at Formula One tracks. Some were improvements on existing facilities; many tracks had medical centres but the quality was extremely variable. Some had emergency ambulances and helicopters, and some did not. Watkins's with Ecclestone's influence had the power to enforce some of the changes. At the 1978 Italian Grand Prix their concerns were realised. At the race's start a multiple crash sent the Lotus of Ronnie Peterson heavily into the barriers. Peterson was dragged out of the wreck by several fellow drivers, both his legs were broken but he was otherwise uninjured. It took several minutes for an ambulance to arrive at the scene and it then had to negotiate a police cordon set up around the accident. Peterson was taken to a nearby hospital where he was stabilized and doctors planned to operate on his legs. During the subsequent operation Peterson developed mulitple fat emboli in his blood stream, slipped into a coma and died. The shambolic rescue and treatment of Peterson, and his death after what should have been survivable injuries, solidified the resolve of Watkins and Ecclestone to improve the medical facilities in Formula One. Medical helicopters, track medical centres, a medical car staffed with an emergency response team, training for marshalls in extricating drivers from their car; all quickly became features of F1 racing in the 1980s.

Formula One wasn't the only arena where safety was being improved. Over in America the USAC and NASCAR series were increasing safety features. The 1973 had been a disastrous affair - 2 drivers died and another was injured in a crash that sprayed burning methanol fuel into the crowd, causing further minor injuries. The second driver death - that of David 'Swede' Savage showed how much safety had improved since the deadly inferno in the 1964 race, and how much further it had to go. Savage spun off the fourth turn of the speedway straight into the same wall that the ill-fated Dave MacDonald had hit in 1964. Like MacDonald his car exploded into pieces, but Savage's fire suit protected him from the worst of the inferno and the fire fighters quickly put out the fire. Unfortunately one of the fire trucks, driving the wrong direction down the pitlane, hit and killed a mechanic. Savage survived in hospital for a month but then died from renal failure, allegedly due to a contaminated blood transfusion. Like Peterson, Savage was as much a victim of inadequate medical care as the dangers of the track.

After 1973 Indianapolis became a safer place - the giant wings on the cars were clipped, turbo charger boost levels were limited, and fuel tanks reduced in size. Such limitations on performance in the name of safety were not exactly unprecedented - the giant aero engined monsters of racing in the 1910s were legislated away by maximum engine displacement rules in the 1920s - but such sweeping changes to many different aspects of car design was a sign that safety was becoming increasingly important. In NASCAR the 'stock' part of stock car racing had already been disappearing partly due to safety - roll cages, tyre inner liners, fire extinguishers, and window nettings all appeared over the years. In 1969 Ford and General Motors tried a new trick; selling limited edition aerodynamic cars for the road so they could race them in NASCAR. After two years of ever increasing speed records NASCAR changed the rules to outlaw the aero-specials.

In the 1980s the motor governing body, the FIA, took the opposite approach when trying to promote the World Rally Championship. Rallying had been gaining popularity in the 1970s, developing from a slower-paced amateur affair with lightly modified road cars, to events with many high speed 'Special Stages' and faster performance cars. The problem for the FIA was that some car manufacturers' road cars were far more suited to high speed off and on-road driving than others, as demonstrated when Audi's four-wheel drive Quattro car cleaned up in the early 1980s. They developed a similar idea to what the manufacturers had tried in NASCAR; to allow entries from custom built specials except without needing road-car equivalents.

The 'Group B' (Group A was for road cars) idea was popular with manufacturers who flocked in to build their own rally cars. Spectators also flocked in the watch the new breed of "Super cars", but soon the Group B rallies were getting out of hand. Freed from the need to build road cars the car makers  poured money into absurdly powerful and fast cars that the driver's could barely handle. And the roads they raced down were often packed tight with huge crowds of spectators - just as the great city to city motor races had once been  At the 1986 Portuguese Rally one driver lost control of his Ford RS200 and plunged into the packed crowd, killing three. A few months later Lancia team leader Henri Toivonen and his co-driver Sergio Cresto died in a fireball when their car plunged into a ravine in Corsica and exploded. The FIA changed their mind about the free-for-all designs and reverted back to road-based cars for 1987, a formula that top level rallying has retained ever since. Unwilling to abandon their Group B cars, many manufacturers took them elsewhere and gave sudden boosts of professionalism and performance to lesser-known events like the Dakar Rally and the Pikes Peak hillclimb, thus paving the way for the further development of other types of off road rallying.

The balance between motor sports being a proving ground for manufacturers and designers versus an entertainment was shifting towards the latter in the 1970s. The late 1960s had seen a raft of innovations - moving wings, turbine engines, 'fan cars' using vacuum suction to grip the road, being introduced by innovative designers and then rapidly restricted by the powers in charge. The dramatic Can-Am series in America had been born in the late 1960s with a very open rulebook - effectively entrants could compete with just about anything they chose - and attracted the cream of sports car companies (Ferrari, McLaren, Porsche) but after a few years internal politics led to increasing restrictions on designers and the series died in 1975 as all manufacturers had withdrawn. From then on racing would adhere to this pattern - manufacturers would occasionally enter as competitors to win a few prize races (Indy, Le Mans etc) and then leave when their objectives were met but the bulk of entrants in all series were privateer teams funded by corporate sponsors, and affiliated with car makers to provide engines and design expertise.

These teams would become legendary names in the latter half of the twentieth century - Ferrari, McLaren and Williams in F1; Penske in Indycar; Roush, Childress, Hendrick in NASCAR; ProDrive in rallying All were tiny operations compared to the car makers - they worked out of industrial estates in specialised workshops developing their latest innovations in high secrecy. Even in the technologically isolated world of NASCAR 'stock' car racing - where strict rules kept cars for using many innovations, where the cars still used carburettors and didn't have fuel gauges, the high-tech 'superteams' would still use the latest technology in their workshops to give their cars an edge that would crush the opposition and attract blue chip corporate sponsors.

In the late 1970s two revolutionary innovations in racing car design would come out of the cottage industry of racing designers and their collaborations with the wider world of industry. In the middle of the decade the Lotus F1 team had been experimenting with the idea of a 'wing car' - rather than simply having wings bolted onto the car, making the entire shape of the car into a downforce-creating wing shape. To test their idea they took models to aerospace windtunnels originally intended to test airliners and fighter jets. While experimenting with shapes the Lotus team noticed that placing large sliding 'skirts' down the sides of the car created a huge amount of low pressure under the car. This was a vacuum effect without any the moving fans that had been outlawed. The Lotus 78 with it's sliding skirts could corner must faster than it's rivals and the improved Lotus 79 was dominant - "painted to the road" in the words of it's driver Mario Andretti - from now on the shape of the racing car would be formed in a wind tunnel.

The concept of so-called 'ground effect' quickly spread to all forms of racing - via the Chaparral in Indycar, the Porsche 956 in sportscars, and even to NASCAR where cars gradually evolved small splitters and valances on their noses and tails. The potency of the ground effect was enhanced by the other great innovation of the time - carbon composites. Woven carbon fibre composites promised a great improvement over aluminium, steel and magnesium - the traditional materials of racing car construction. Carbon was stronger, stiffer, and, crucially, lighter than aluminium. The importance of rigidity and stiffness and the new world of highly aerodynamic racing cars had been highlighted by the speed that the Lotus 79 had suddenly been overtaken by the competition after one year, especially the Williams team, who created similar cars with stronger chassis that didn't flex and were thus more efficient.

The effect of safety of the ground effect revolution was a double edged sword. In the Lotus 78 and 79 the need to create clear 'tunnels' down the cars flanks meant the fuel tanks could no longer be beside the driver. The Lotus placed the fuel tank in a much more protected position behind the driver and in front of the engine. The large side-pods also created crushable bodywork to absorb impacts and cushion the driver. On the flip side the cars were hugely fast in the corners, once again straining the safety facilities of circuits, and had a disturbing tendency to fly when launched over another car. The large undersides of the cars creating a perfect surface to catch the oncoming air and flip the cars over.

As the ground effect cars increased in performance they pushed the limits of the materials used to construct the cars - parts would fail under strain and the resulting crashes involved very large forces. In 1980 F1 driver Patrick Depailler died in testing at Hockenheim when his suspension collapsed under the stresses of high speed cornering. Two years later the mercurial crowd favourite Gilles Villeneuve crashed into the back of another car in a qualifying session; his Ferrari somersaulted high into the air, over the barrier and disintegrated. A month later at the Indianapolis 500 qualifications driver Gordon Smiley died when he crashed head-on into the Speedway's turn three wall at 200mph. Smiley's crash was a 'ground effect' crash; he lost the back end of his car in the corner, as his car slid it lost the downforce from the ground effect tunnels under the car. Smiley instinctively counter-steered to correct his car and in doing do his car suddenly regained it's downforce, snapped back straight and was now facing the concrete wall without losing any speed. Smiley had no further time to react - his car was totally destroyed in the crash.  

Aluminium chassis could clearly not withstand an impact at the kind of speeds the cars of the 1980s were capable of travelling. A year earlier from the tragedies of 1982 came a clue to the potential of carbon fibre to be more crash proof than aluminium. The 1981 McLaren F1 car did not win any championships but it was - in a subtle way - one of the most important racing cars ever created. The McLaren MP4 was the first racing car with a chassis made entirely from carbon composites. The chassis - developed in collaboration with Hercules Aerospace - attracted both praise and suspicion in equal amounts. It was undoubtedly an elegant piece of minimal design but doubters wondered if composites were too brittle to be crash resistant, and whether the car would crumble in a cloud of black debris when crashed.

In the 1981 Italian Grand Prix the McLaren MP4 was put to the crash test when John Watson spun in one the high speed turns on the Monza circuit. Watson spun hard into the crash barrier and richocheted back across the road. The car's engine and rear wheels broke away and bounced down the track, but the driver's cockpit completely intact and Watson could even step out and walk away. The toughness of carbon chassis was conclusively proven and during the next decade the material would cocoon drivers from once previously lethal impacts. Suddenly Formula One and Indy drivers were no longer dying in high speed crashes.

Circuits were becoming safer too in the 1980s. After Jackie Stewart's initial safety crusade had threatened some circuits to modernise or lose their races there began a blitz of installing metal barriers round tracks in the 1970s. This approach was then tempered by the deaths of some drivers (and maiming of others) by improperly secured barriers, and barriers that were much stronger than the cars that hit them. As previously mentioned the car Roger Williamson perished in had been flipped over by a crash barrier mounted in sandy soil rather than a solid foundation - the barrier bent over when hit and flipped Williamson's car over.

Later in the same year Stewart's protege, Francois Cevert was killed in an impact with a barrier at Watkins Glen (the last race of the year, causing Stewart to withdraw from what was scheduled to be his final race before retiring). Cevert ran wide in the circuit's uphill 'S'-bends, brushed barriers on one side of the track, went off line and crashed heavily into the other side before sliding sideways back across track again broadside into the first barrier. Cevert was killed instantly - both car and driver sliced in two by the heavy metal rail - ironically all on part of the circuit that had once been entirely open to the fields; had Cevert made his slight mistake a few years prior he would have likely spun harmlessly through rough grass, albeit possibly scattering the photographers and marshalls who were once prevalant at the edge of the road at motor races.

The Glen would see another gruesome crash a year later at the Grand Prix - Austrian rookie Helmuth Koinigg ran straight into a two-tier guard rail after his brakes failed. The lower rail gave way in the crash while the top held firm, Koinigg's car slid underneath the top rail and the driver was decapitated. A year later in Barcelona the Spanish Grand Prix was nearly cancelled after drivers inspected the Montjuic street track and found many badly fitted and often unbolted barriers. The race went ahead only for several spectators (standing in a prohibited area) to be killed when a car crashed over the barriers.

A solution to the crash barrier problem seemed to come in the form of catch fencing - walls of mesh held up with light wooden posts installed in protective layers in front of the railings. The idea undoubtedly arrested cars and prevented impacts, and since drivers now all wore full-faced crash helmets (instead of helmets and goggles) there was less danger of any wounds from the fences. However tangled fences could often prevent drivers getting out their cars - and help reaching the drivers - and the posts sometimes struck dangerous blows to driver's heads. Catch fences began to be phased out in the 1980s in favour of gravel and sand traps. These areas gravel on the edges of corners would also slow cars down but without the potential dangers of fencing but retaining the penalty-factor of bogging cars down and often putting them out of the race. Solid barriers also began to to be fronted with layers of tyres to soften impacts - harking back to the days of straw bales but without the same potential for fuelling deadly blazes.

By the late 1980s all racing series were developing a sense of relative safety- the days when it was practically a guarantee that at least one driver would be killed during the year and a big name star would be killed every few years were seemingly passed. Cars were stronger, circuits were less hazardous, emergency responses to crashes were vastly improved, medical care and firefighting especially showing a vast improvement over past decades. One challenging and intimidating corner at one race track in particular seemed to bear witness to the improvements.

The Tamburello turn at the Imola circuit in northern Italy was renowed as one of the most breathtaking, heart-in-mouth, places on the world racing calendar. A flat out left hand bend taken by F1 cars at close to 200mph, with a narrow strip of concrete and grass to the right before a looming concrete wall protecting a river behind. In the late 1980s and early 1990s several F1 drivers crashed heavily at Tamburello and walked away. Nelson Piquet and Michele Alboreto spun into the concrete wall at full speed during practice session crashes while Gerhard Berger ran head-on into it after a car failure during the early stages of the 1989 San Marino Grand Prix. Berger's crash looked disastrous to the watching television viewers.

His Ferrari didn't turn the corner after breaking it's front wing, ran straight into the wall and exploded in flames. But where once there might have a been a tragic scene of inept and inexperienced marshalls there was instead a scene of consummate professonalism. An emergency response car pulled up to the wreck and fire marshalls quelled the blaze. Then the medical car arrived with Professor Watkin's and his team of doctors and paramedics to extricate and stabilise the driver. Berger had minor burns to his hands and face but was otherwise unharmed, protected from serious injury by his multi-layered fire-suit and his Ferrari's carbon fibre 'tub' chassis.

Other forms of racing too were seeing similar situations, and racing organisations were seeing their levels of safety as badges of pride. In America NASCAR had long considered it's cars with their heavy roll cages as some of the safest race cars in the world - a point often proven with high speed shunts at Daytona, Talladega and the like where drivers  would clamber from the cars  shaken but mostly unhurt. The NHRA drag racing organisation had pioneered it's so called 'safety safari' in the 1950s where it's fire fighters and emergency extrication crews would travel around America to amateur drag strips and competitions training locals how to rescue drivers from crashed cars. The Safari operated impressively during the pro-races, usually their reponse trucks would be seen rolling towards a crash before the wreck had even finished.

All of this is by way of illustrating the general sense of security that had been generated around big-time motor racing, and the consquent seismic shockwaves that were created on May 1st 1994 when Ayrton Senna - the three time Formula One World Champion - crashed out of the lead in the San Marino Grand Prix at Tamburello corners and died. The motor racing world had not known a situation of such shock and disbelief since the death of Jim Clark in 1968. In both cases the two drivers had such abundant talents, had scored so many successes, and been such dominant figures in their respective eras that it seemed inconcievable that they might be killed in racing cars. And if Clark had seemed to have too calm and sensible a demeanour to ever seem to be risking a dice with death then Senna had cultivated an image as a driver with such determined focus and motivation as to have an almost spiritual understanding and control of his car. Senna, like Clark was simply too good at what he did to die.

The day before Senna died another driver - the rookie Roland Ratzenberger - was killed at the same track. Ratzenberger's death brought to an end the twelve year run that Formula One had enjoyed without a fatality at a race weekend. Six years had elapsed since driver Elio de Angeles had died in after a crash in a testing session, a crash that had eerie echoes of Roger Williamson's death in 1973. De Angeles had overturned his car in a high speed corner and over twenty minutes elapsed before the few onlookers at the track managed to rescue the driver who was unconscious and unresponsive. While safety at races had been improved, test sessions were still very unpredictable. Because it happened away from the television cameras in a private test session de Angeles's demise tended to be overlooked whenever safety in F1 was mentioned. Riccardo Paletti's fatal crash into the back of Didier Pironi's stalled Ferrari on the starting line in Montreal 1982 was usually remembered as the "last fatality".

Ratzenberger's crash happened at the highest speed point of the Imola circuit and was apparently down to a car failure. The F1 paddock was saddened but not shocked. The rookie had evidently damaged his car's front wing against a kerb and not pulled into the pits to have it checked. When it fell off it fell under the car's front wheels, jammed them and the driver slid straight off into the concrete barrier. One person who was shocked by the fatality was Ayrton Senna - in the aftermath he commandeered a course car and drove up the track to look at the scene. He confided to Dr Watkin's that he didn't think he should race in the upcoming grand prix. In the aftermath of his own death much was made of Senna's seeming premonition of his own end, how his normally unflappable demeanour had been shaken, how like Niki Lauda before his near-fatal Nurburgring crash in 1976 Senna suddenly was preoccupied with safety.

As it was Senna lined up for the 1994 San Marino grand prix on the morning of May 1 1994 in pole position, and at the starting light leapt away into the lead as he had countless times before, with the young German upstart Michael Schumacher in hot pursuit. Schumacher had won the first two races of the year, while Senna had failed to finish in either, a major upset of pre-season predictions that had Senna, finally behind the wheel of the dominant Williams Renault, romping away with the championship. So Senna was keen to press on in the race, to finally put the new challenger in his place; unfortunately the battle would be put on hold for a few minutes after a large collision on the starting grid. Rather than stop the race and restart the organisors took the decision - controversial in retrospect of what happened next - to send out the safety car.

The safety car (or pace car) was a recent import into F1 from American racing, where it was served the dual purpose of slowing the field so crashes could be cleared up and also of bunching the the field of cars. While the concept made sense on high speed oval tracks where the risk to rescuers of another car crashing into them was very high, and the ease of overtaking made relative track position less important to the race, American series also used a pace car on road and street courses - much to the improvement of the spectacle with many processional races being turned back into frantic action packed sprints with the introduction of a timely "Full Course Caution" flag. Many observers wondered if the safety car was being introduced into F1 not just for safety reasons but also to 'spice up' the racing from time to time. In 1993 F1 bosses had been presented with the worrying prospect of their world champion - Nigel Mansell - giving up F1 for the exotic world of American IndyCar racing. Suddenly many F1 fans were talking excitedly about the American series and how it seemed to have retained some of the glamour and danger of F1's previous decades - Mansell's team owner was Paul Newman, his teammate former F1 champ Mario Andretti, both racing against another F1 champ - Emerson Fittipaldi. Rumours swirled that perhaps even Ayrton Senna would be tempted by a
big-bucks offer from Marlboro to race in the Indy 500.

Senna ultimately stayed in F1 after sealing the Williams Renault deal. Unfortunately for the Senna the once-dominant team had struggled to make their new 1994 car handle well and Senna was having to push hard to stay ahead of Michael Schumacher's Benetton. The safety car at the start of the race was not what Senna wanted to happen - before the race he had voiced his concern that it was too slow and that drivers would have trouble keeping tyre pressures and temperatures up to proper levels, a concern for Senna as he knew how awkward his car was to drive unless his set-up was perfect. Tv cameras picked up Senna pulling up to the rear of the safety car, agitatedly waving to it to be removed from his way was as soon as possible. When at last after several painfully slow laps it was brought in Senna and Schumacher took off, immediately creating a gap to the third placed car. The Williams and Benetton disappered past the pits up to the Tamburello curve, round the Imola circuit cheered and saluted with air-horns by the ever-enthusiatic Italian 'tifosi' packing onto the spectactor banks. Senna and Schumacher, already seemingly in a race of their own race were soon back to the start line and blasting back up to Tamburello.

Only one of the two emerged from Tamburello on lap seven. In the middle of the long left hander Senna's car had seemed to wobble from the inside line and then drove straight off across the small dusty concrete run-off area and into the concrete wall at the side of the track. The right front wheel sailed high into the air as the car slewed back towards the track and came to a halt. The impact was heavy but not dramatic looking, and the car was in one piece minus it's front wheel and wing. Concern began to mount as Senna stayed sat stiffly in his car rather than climbing out. His helmeted head wobbled momentarily as if he was coming round from a concussion, but then he again sat motionless. The doctors cars and ambulances arrived, Senna was extricated from his car, and the medical team began working in their familiar practiced but urgent way. Marshalls held tarpaulins up to shield the scene from the prying eyes of the helicopter cameras above, but when Senna was finally moved to the medical helicopter, landed nearby on the track itself, the cameras caught the unmistakable sight of a large pool of blood on the ground where Senna's head had been lain.

Michael Schumacher won the restarted race, but by the race's end all thoughts were turned to Senna's condition. Despite the grave-looking scenes of the rescue earlier much hope remained that the great driver would eventually pull through. At 6:30pm the Bologna hospital announced the worst; Senna was dead, killed by several massive head injuries. The rescutiation effort had been futile; his helmet had been struck by his front wheel on impact with the wall, causing fatal injuries to the back of his skull, and a jagged piece of the car's suspension mounting had pierced his helmet visor, causing another mortal wound in the temple. The shockwaves were immediate and motorsport safety was immediately the lead story throughout the world. Suddenly Ratzenberger's death went from being a back page story the front page in light of Senna's death - two drivers killed in two days was the narrative. Motorsport was suddenly a 'blood' sport again, and in the crosshairs of the world's media.

The storm eventually died down, but not without many placatory measures from the motor sport governing body, the FIA. They announced plans to slow down F1 cars and to make circuits safer. Through the mid-90's F1 cars were gradually strengthened, their sides built up with padding round the driver's cockpit - no longer would the driver's head sit exposed with little side protection. Crash tests were made tougher and rules were changed to slow cars whenever lap times began to reduce dramtically. After the firestorm of criticism that had erupted after Senna's death, when F1's reputation was being crucified by the world's media, the FIA had realised that the sport could never afford to lose such a big star in such a public way ever again. And their aggressive pursuit of safety has ultimately been successful; Ratzenberger and Senna are the last F1 drivers to die in action to date.

The death of Senna and subsequent safety-drive did a great many things to improve the safety of all drivers in motorsport - both in detail improvements to cars and race tracks and also in changing the attitude of the people responsible for safety -  The complacent attitude towards safety that had crept into the racing world in the early 1990's was forever replaced with a more pro-active approach. The huge increase in computer simulation power in the 2000's has facilitated a more scientific-attitude to safety. Bio-dynamics experts, physicists, doctors and car designers can now simulate crashes and study their effects entirely in virtual worlds. The figures involved can be sobering for television viewers almost desentised to the speed and energy developed by racing cars; for example the force of the fatal blow that struck Ayrton Senna from his wheel has been likened to being dropped out of a building from several stories high and landing on one's head. Circuits can be designed on computers for optimum safety; new materials are also making their mark - whether in cars, or crash barriers, (replacing the crude concrete walls and tyre barriers of old), or in helmets and visors. Computer aided-design and rigurous crash testing are now the norm. So, the great irony of Senna's death is that by far the most important safety innovation since the 1990s had been under development since the early stages of the 1980s and was mostly ignored until the after the start of the new millennium. It would untimately take another disaster to get it into widespread use.

In the early 1980's, Professor Robert Hubbard, an expert on biomechanical engineering at Michigan State University, and brother in law to sports car racer called Jim Downing, was pondering the number of fatalities in motor racing caused by severe head injuries. He noticed a weakness in the protection afforded to drivers; while the driver's torso was well restrained with safety belts, and the driver's head shielded by the crash helmet, the driver's neck was completely unharnessed. In a crash the enormous momentum of the driver's head (made even heavier with a helmet) pulling away from the securely fastened torso would build up tremendous forces on the neck and often lead to fatal skull fractures, or paralysis from spinal cord injuries. Hubbard came up with a yoke-shaped device fitting over the drivers shoulders and attaching to side of the crash helmet via stretching tethers. In a crash the device would hold the crash helmet and body together as one, preventing the head from violently snapping forward and dissapating the energy through the shoulders, and ultimately into the seat belts and the seat.

The Head And Neck Support (or 'HANS') was first built in 1985 and tested on crash sleds through the subsequent years. He founded his own company to build and sell the device in 1991 but attracted little interest. After Imola 1994 the FIA made inquiries to Hubbard, but was also seriously considering airbag systems for F1 cars (an idea that was never developed to feasibility). The first racing organisation to use HANS regularly was the drag racing organisation the NHRA, where the extreme high speeds meant violent accidents were practically guaranteed. As drag racers do not have to turn their heads the device was easier to integrate into existing seats and belts. The issue of comfort was more of a concern for circuit racers, who baulked against wearing a bulky yoke over their shoulder's in the tight confines of a racing cockpit, even as light weight carbon fibre HANS devices became available.

During the 2000 NASCAR season the HANS device was trailed by some drivers but still there was resistance to the idea. 7-time NASCAR champion Dale Earnhardt was particularly scornful - referring to the HANS as "that damn noose". By 2000 Earnhardt was the pivotal figure in NASCAR, many years past the height of his powers - when he was the legendary "Intimidator" of the late 1980s and early 90's, winning races aplenty -  but still the living embodiment of everything NASCAR was selling itself as; grassroots, down to earth, self-taught, straight talking, no-nonsense, racing for the common man. And the school drop out turned multi-millionaire Earnhardt had become the hero for what many Americans were increasingly coming to call 'NASCAR dads' - the gender opposite of 'Soccer moms' - middle aged, blue and white collar, conservative men who watched racing on Sunday afternoon. Earnhardt commanded huge incomes from merchandising, sat at the head of a burgeoning business empire, and was the only driver capable of standing toe to toe with NASCAR's ruling France family. When Earnhardt dismissed the HANS his words carried weight. Only a few other drivers felt strong enough to publically disagree and support the HANS's use.

The HANS was being talked about because during the 2000 season two drivers had been killed in NASCAR competition, coincidentally enough in identical crashes at the same corner. During the second-tier Busch series race practice session at the New Hampshire Speedway Adam Petty, 19 year old grandson of the most successful NASCAR driver of all Richard Petty, was killed when his car crashed straight into the concrete wall. Weeks later during the top-level Winston Cup series practice Kenny Irwin was killed in near-identical circumstances. Both drivers were killed instantly from basilar skull fractures, an unusual but devastating injury to the area of the skull at the top of the spine, the kind of injury the HANS was designed to prevent.

Later in the year Dale Earnhardt would take his one victory of the year at Talladega. It would be his 76th and last victory. Earnhardt had famously had terrible luck in NASCAR's most famous race, the season-opening Daytona 500. He had manaaged to find almost every possible way to lose the race including blowing a tyre in the final corner of the last lap in 1990. He finally won the 'big one' in 1998, NAScAR's 50th anniversary year, and three years later was seeking victory again, only as both a driver and as a car owner, with his two cars being driven by his son Dale Jr and Michael Waltrip. The race was also NASCAR's first as part of a new multi-million dollar television deal with the American FOX network, with Earnhardt placed centre stage as part of the marketing of the season. The tragedies of the previous year still rumbled in the background, with another driver, truck series driver Tony Roper being killed, again by a skull fracture, late in the 2000 season. Many drivers were predicting a big crash in the Daytona 500 as a result of tweaks in the rules to try prevent a repeat of the dull 2000 race when cars were unable to pass each other. Ever since the record-breaking speeds of the 1987 season, when drivers could lap the speedways at over 210mph, and the sport came close to disaster when a car nearly flew into the grandstand at Talladega, NASCAR had mandated 'restictor plates' in the engines to lower the horsepower of the cars on the two biggest speedways - Daytona and Talladega. As a result the cars were slowed but raced around in tight packs unable to break apart from each other.

Dale Earnhardt was renowed as a master of 'plate racing' but despite this was distainful of it and "riding around waiting for the 'big one'" was a familiar put-down. Even Earnhardt couldn't get NASCAR to budge from it's need for the plates. Stock cars simply could not be allowed to race at over 210+ mph no matter what, many suspected that NASCAR's insurers secretly stipulated that speeds had to be kept down to prevent any chance of a car flying into the crowd. Before the 2001 race Earnhardt voiced concerns about the closeness of the racing in the warm up races. Like Ayrton Senna before him, people close to Earnhardt claimed later that his demenour in the days before the race seemed 'odd' and suddenly reflective. As if the deaths of the previous year had led him to wonder how much longer he could cheat fate - when some of his marketing men told how they were planning to commemorate his breaking the record for the most consecutive NASCAR starts in mid 2001 with a slew of new merchandise, Earnhardt replied tersely 'that's if I make it that far'.

The last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500 saw Earnhardt sitting in third position. In any previous year he would have been trying everything to win, but this time something was different. He was behind his two cars - Dale Jr, and Waltrip. And, to borrow terms from another American sport, instead of offence he was playing defence; trying to block the following pack from reaching his cars. It was a plan that ultimately worked, for Waltrip indeed won the race, except that Earnhardt would never know it. In the last corner at almost the same place his tyre had blown in 1990, his famous black number 3 was tagged lightly from behind, wobbled down the track before slewing back up across the following cars and head on towards the outside wall. At the last instant Earnhardt was tagged in the right door by Ken Schrader's oncoming car, changing the angle of the upcoming impact to virtually a right angle. On television that hit didn't look dramatic at all, but the camera angles were deceptive; Earnhardt's car went from 180+mph to a stop in an instant. When Ken Schrader climbed from his car to check on Earnhardt he began to motion frantically to rescue crews after looking inside the car.

The rescue crews arrived and cut the roof from the car to extracate the driver, an ambulance pulled up and took the driver to the nearest hospital. It was all for nothing; like Petty, Irwin and Roper, Earnhardt had died from a basilar skull fracture. Had he been wearing a HANS in all likelihood he would have survived virtually unscathed. The tragedy sent an even bigger shockwave through NASCAR than even Senna's death had sent through F1. Earnhardt *was* NASCAR, stickers with his iconic italic number '3' graced millions of car windows throughout the American midwest and south. It was, as many noted, as if motor racing's "Elvis" had died. The shock completely changed mindsets - drivers clamoured to wear head restraints, and they were soon made mandatory, not just in NASCAR but throughout all racing.

Since 2001 countless drivers in all fields of competition have suffered heavy impacts and walked away. Serious head injuries of the type that once killed drivers have decreased massively. Today the only major danger for racing drivers that remains a very real hazard is blunt head trauma from hitting track or roadside objects (as in the crash that killed Indy 500 winner Dan Wheldon in 2011), being struck by other cars at high speed, or from being hit by debris or tyres (F3 driver Henry Surtees was killed by a loose wheel striking him in 2009). Motor racing remains inherintly dangerous because there will always be risk in racing competively at speed, in close proximity with other cars, often in remote locations far from medical attention. Humans can only protect themselves so much from the danger of impacts. As Jackie Stewart once observed: "We think racing is becoming safe. Until the wrong accident occurs".