CAPPS: SAFETY HAS TO BE FIRST PRIORITY IN 4-WIDE EVENT
member of the driver’s safety committee, has been inspired to look closer at the safety concerns surrounding one of drag racing’s most talked-about upcoming events – four wide racing.
“We’re all concerned, and excited about it – we came to the conclusion that it’s all for a good cause,” Capps said, of the safety aspects related to the NHRA 4-Wide Nationals in March. “It’s good publicity and good for a man who has built many of the tracks we race on – Bruton Smith. We just wanted to make sure some things from a driver’s standpoint, were looked at.”
Some of those issues include better visibility of the Christmas tree, and the potential that debris from a crash similar to the one that took out Kenny Bernstein alongside of John Force during the 2007 NHRA Fallnationals in Dallas.
According to Capps, a wall has been placed in the middle separating the two tracks.
These advances, made in the name of safety, Capps believes, is largely due in part to the willingness of the NHRA’s Graham Light and Dan Olson to work with the teams for the safest possible situation.
“The open communication with Graham Light and Dan Olson has been good,” Capps said. “The drivers are all for it, the only issues we had were that of safety. Those issues are being taken care of. We have to back NHRA on something like this. You have to get behind a guy like Bruton Smith who has done so much for our sport. You have to give him something back. We have to make sure we cover all of the bases on safety from our end.”
The NHRA’s new automatic safety shut-off switch will be in place for drag racing’s first official NHRA four-abreast national event. There is some tweaking still to be done to the system based on the performance at the first event of the season.
One of those ideas was to make it manually operated, a system Capps believes is not likely to work because of the margin of error. Another is a driver-operated override to prevent a situation similar to Thursday’s qualifying, where a car broke a reverser, coasted through the lights and automatically deployed the parachutes, leaving the powerless car stranded on the track while the other was under fire on the starting line. Capps' NAPA-sponsored Funny Car also blew a supercharger burst panel associated with the automatic shut-off system.
While the NHRA was largely criticized for not consulting PRO before announcing the 4-Wide Nationals, Capps said he understands the reason the event was kept under wraps for the most part.
“Looking at it as a devil’s advocate this was too large of an announcement for many people to be consulted beforehand,” Capps admitted. “With today’s Internet age, that would have ended up on Attitude's CompetitionPlus.com or a message board. It wouldn’t have been a big announcement then.”
Capps is reserving judgment until after the event, and that is when the NHRA will analyze the event for the future.
“If it works, it works. Just like Tom Compton said, we just need to give it a try,” Capps said. “If it doesn’t work, we just won’t do it again. If the fans don’t like it, we won’t do it again. Let’s look at it, look at the attendance and television of other forms of motorsports and drag racing hung pretty tight. I think things like this are going to keep it going.”
At the end of the day, Capps says it is up to the NHRA to make the tough and unpopular decisions. But it is up to both the drivers and the sanctioning body to keep the dialogue going.
“It goes back to communication,” Capps said of NHRA VP of Operations Graham Light. “It’s like Mike Helton over in NASCAR, you can’t be everyone’s buddy and be the one setting your foot down with the rules. He can’t be the best friend; he’s got to be that kind of person. I don’t envy his position but it’s been great to sit down with him and have open communication. Many times in the past we may have called Graham names and may have gotten mad about something, there just wasn’t communication. Now things are going well. We all need to work together to help our sport.”
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