I attended the Four Crown show this past weekend at Eldora. Tony Stewart has again put money back into the facility by adding the Little Eldora track for go karts and .25 midgets. In these tough economic times it is great to see a racer put money back into the sport in which he grew up.
Since my friends grandson races .25 midgets I ventured over to the track on Saturday morning. To my surprise over 240 cars were entered into the competition. It was great to see so many kids and their parents there racing. The age group was 5-16 according to the announcer. It was also nice to see people helping others working on racecars together.
Just another reminder why this sport is so special.
With that being said, I have some questions and observations. The races were run under the USAC series sanction. USAC has always been a leader in the industry when it comes to safety and technology. Here is what I would like someone to help me with.
1)Why does USAC allow the kids to lean to the left outside of both the rollcage and the nerf bars? Their head and neck are completely outside of the protective bars. If a 5 point safety belt is the standard, how can this possibly be installed correctly to allow this to happen? They look to be almost laying down in the cockpit. I was shocked to see kids coming out of the pits already leaning to the left with USAC officials helping push them off.
2)Second thing that jumped out at me was even more astonishing. Where was the ambulance? Apparently there wasn't an ambulance on site since they had to call one on Sunday from what I was told. I personally didn't see one on site and when I asked the question was told that it probably was someplace around close by.
3)The last question that I have is concerning parents being allowed on the track when cars are running under yellow? It seems that they allow parents and "handlers", the announcers term, to come onto the track under yellow flag conditions and push their car after a spin. Seems to me to be a really dangerous situation since they seem to only be concerned about their car and driver.
When I heard that USAC was getting into .25 midget sanctioning, I thought that the safety level would increase. From what I saw this weekend, apparently my thoughts were totally incorrect. I am interested in hearing from others and their thoughts on this as well.