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1. #Drag race car goes airborne cracked#
2. #Drag race car goes airborne drivers#
3. #Drag race car goes airborne driver#

#Drag race car goes airborne drivers#

NASCAR can influence which companies sell equipment to teams, determine which drivers can race in its competitions and decide where races are held. With its huge crowds, major sponsors and TV revenues, NASCAR has become a half-billion-dollar-a-year industry and is considered one of the most powerful ruling bodies in all of sports. It declined to answer any questions pertaining to the deaths of Bonnett and Orr or to explain its procedures for investigating fatal racing accidents. NASCAR declined repeated requests for interviews, saying it would have no comment on the newspaper’s findings. He said several NASCAR officials also looked at the wreckage and that a NASCAR attorney was told of the broken parts on both cars. The same broken part also may have caused Bonnett’s wreck.Ī NASCAR source, who requested anonymity because of his working relationship with NASCAR, examined Bonnett’s car after the crash and said the Chevrolet Lumina also had a broken shock-absorber mounting stud. They said the metal used in the part was too weak for the demands of racing at speeds up to 200 mph.

#Drag race car goes airborne cracked#

“It’s like the right rear falling out from under you.”īoth an engineer and a metal expert hired by the Sentinel found that the stud on Orr’s car was cracked long before the wreck. The car “would go straight into the wall,” he said.

#Drag race car goes airborne driver#

Richard Petty, who has won more races than any other driver in Winston Cup history, said controlling a car when the part snaps is impossible. Without the shock absorber locked firmly into place, the car could bounce drastically out of control. In Orr’s death, the part that failed was a 3-inch, screw-like piece – called a stud – that held the right rear shock absorber to the car, according to experts hired by the newspaper. Its practices mean problems that cause fatal crashes may be overlooked and other drivers may be in danger. In all those cases, NASCAR routinely conducted short examinations, released the wreckage to owners and seldom conducted in-depth interviews with crew members who prepared the cars for the race. In the past 20 years, eight drivers have been killed and another is in a coma after crashes in the Winston Cup Series, stock-car racing’s elite level. NASCAR’s cursory investigations are not unusual. In tests commissioned by the Sentinel, Standards Testing Laboratories of Massillon, Ohio, found that Orr’s tires met all construction, design and compound standards. in recent years for a bigger share of the racing market.

At the time of their deaths, Orr and Bonnett were using Hoosier tires, which in recent years has been challenging Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. Racing tires built by Hoosier did not contribute to Orr’s wreck, as drivers and owners suggested after the crash. Any chance of discovering the cause is gone because the car was destroyed shortly after the crash. But NASCAR still has not said what caused the wreck.

NASCAR, after saying Bonnett’s driving had caused his wreck, quietly retracted its finding shortly after the crash amid objections from champion driver Dale Earnhardt and Bonnett’s family.