Here's the newspaper story on the modified driver killed last fall:
'Ryan died doing what he loved'
Driver's father says track officials 'did everything they could'
By Doug Myers
Reporter-News Staff Writer
Abilene Reporter News
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
[I]The images continue to haunt Terry Bard.
He can't sleep.
All he can think of is his son pinned, unable to escape, as flames engulfed his race car Sunday at the Abilene Speedway.
"It wasn't a small fire. It was an inferno," he said Tuesday, recalling the fiery crash that ultimately claimed his 23-year-old son's life while his family watched.
Ryan Bard's death was the first fatal crash at the Speedway that the track's owner and another driving enthusiast could recall. And while the death has race fans wondering what more could have been done to save Ryan, Terry Bard said he was pleased with the race track's efforts to help.
"Ryan died doing what he loved," he said. "That's a class act out there (at the Abilene Speedway). Whenever something like that happens, there's a lot of finger pointing. I don't want any finger pointing. They did everything they could. It shouldn't even be an issue. The people who are finger pointing are the people who weren't there.
"I was down in the middle of it," he said. "I know what was going on."
Ryan Bard, of Farmington, N.M., was participating in the Southern Challenge, the final weekend of racing in 2007 at the Abilene Speedway on the city's west side. A 2001 high school graduate and baseball pitcher in Aztec, N.M., Ryan had been extremely successful in racing over the past two years, winning four main events in four states in less than a year. He also planned to marry Caley Lapaire, 20, in May.
But on Sunday, something went wrong while Ryan was driving in a four-mile long race on the dirt oval.
Track owner Rob Poor said Bard's car had 22 gallons of fuel on board. When it flipped and landed on its hood, the gas cap came off, causing fuel to spill onto the driver. Even though the race was short, Bard had many more gallons in the tank than needed to finish the race in an effort to weigh down the car and stop it from slipping on the dirt track.
It's not uncommon for drivers to use extra gasoline to stop their cars from sliding, but Poor said he wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't some discussion about limiting the amount fuel allowed on such vehicles.
"I'm not saying they're not going to do it," Poor said, referring to the International Motor Contest Association (IMCA), which governs such races.
Repeated efforts to reach IMCA officials for comment Tuesday were unsuccessful.
Terry Bard, 47, said about a dozen people in son's family from Oklahoma and New Mexico gathered at the race track Sunday as part of a "family reunion" and witnessed the fatal crash.
"He encouraged them to come because he knew he was good," Terry Bard said.
What they saw after the crash was "a ball of fire," he said.
Bard vividly remembers reaching inside his son's flipped race car, severely burning his hand and scorching his shoelaces, after the stuck driver successfully unhooked his safety belt and pulled back the driver-side netting.
As soon the car flipped over, the race track's flagman grabbed the fire extinguisher and ran over to it.
"The flagman stood there as long as he could hold the extinguisher," Terry Bard said. "Some safety crew got burned trying to get him out."
Poor said the fire would die down, and then it would come back when another gulp of fuel would spill on the driver.
Ultimately, Bard was unable to break free from the fire. He died Monday morning at Parkland Hospital in Dallas.
And Terry Bard had lost his only child.
Poor said precautions are taken before each race. Fire equipment and personnel are also placed at the track. Crews check the drivers' cars and gear, to reduce the threat of serious injuries.
Poor said all the cars that raced on Sunday were appropriately checked.
"We have really good safety procedures," he said.
He noted that no driver, before Sunday, had been killed since he began racing at the track in 1981.
The track followed the same safety routines that all the race tracks go through, Terry Bard said.
"All of that was done," he said, noting that his son had the "best safety equipment. "It was just a tragic, tragic accident," he said.
"Everything just lined up wrong for the boy," said Poor, the track's owner since 2001.
The co-owner of A-City Speed, a Woodard Street business that sells car racing safety outfits and gear, said he believes all the safety precautions were taken Sunday and that Ryan Bard's death was just a freak accident.
"We've been doing it (racing) since the '70s, and I've never seen anything like that," Donnie Underwood said.
Underwood said that Ryan Bard, as Bard's father also noted, was wearing top-of-the-line gear. No additional equipment would have likely saved him, he said.
Kate Llewellyn, also a co-owner of A-City Speed, said the governing body for such races -- the IMCA -- has certain requirements that racers must meet, including wearing fire retardant suits, neck braces and gloves, and approved helmets and seat belts.
A-City Speed has received requests for in-car fire "suppressants" since Bard's crash. The fire suppressant is placed in cars behind the driver's head and produces foam on impact or when temperatures inside the vehicle reach a high level.
It remained unclear whether Tuesday whether Bard's car was equipped with a fire suppressant.
In the wake of the crash, Underwood said he plans to install one in his racing car.
For now, Terry Bard remembers the way his son raced and lived his life.
"He (Ryan) always raced everybody clean," he said. "You never found a racer who didn't like Ryan."
His son would race until midnight or 1 a.m. and then show up the next day, with this fianc
