Death of Moore Illustrates That Risk Is Always There

It wasn’t the way Wally Dallenbach wanted to close out his 20 years as chief steward for Championship Auto Racing Teams, but he knows that such things as Greg Moore’s fatal accident Sunday at California Speedway are inevitable in motor sports.

“This is not a checkers game,” the former driver said Monday after reviewing all aspects of the 225-mph crash with representatives of the San Bernardino County sheriff’s office and California Speedway officials.

“The bottom line is that our cars are very safe, compared to the way they were when I started out, or even compared to a few years ago,” he said. “I’ve been in this [open-wheel racing] thing for 34 years, and in midgets and sprint cars before that, and it’s part of the sport, sad as it is. It never disappears.”

Dallenbach said the accident, in which Moore’s car slid off the track across the grass into a retaining wall was almost identical to one involving Richie Hearn--and Hearn walked away unscathed.

“How do you figure that?” he said. “How can one car have the same impact 10 feet away, and the guy walks away, and with only a different angle of impact, it’s fatal to the other one.”

One of Dallenbach’s functions as chief steward has been to assure that every safety precaution is in place at the tracks, and in the cars.

“Greg Moore’s cockpit and tub [the part of the car surrounding the driver] maintained their integrity in the impact,” he said. “The tethers on the wheels [to prevent them from flying into the stands] stayed on. Everything worked the way it was supposed to work.

“It’s just that there are certain things an open-wheel cockpit cannot do when you’re upside down and make contact the way his car did. At the point of impact, it had the highest reading we ever had at 154 Gs.”

(G is a symbol used to rate the gravitational forces that act on riders in any kind of vehicle. According the the World Book encyclopedia, an airplane pilot can survive a force of nine Gs for only a few seconds.)

The Reynard chassis appeared to explode, sending pieces in all directions, but that is the way they are supposed to respond in a crash. This dissipates the energy of the impact, but when a car hits with the force that Moore’s hit, it is almost an instant fatality.

Mario Andretti, who raced with Dallenbach for many years before retiring, agrees that racing is much safer today than when they raced together.

“I buried a lot of my friends,” he told the Associated Press. “Back then, the cars were just plain dangerous. Now, drivers expect to have long careers and retire with everything intact. We have fuel cells and crushable side pods and improved helmets and lots of other things for the safety of the drivers.

“But the human body was never meant to be smashed into walls at high speed. With everything that’s being done to protect them, drivers are still only human and vulnerable.”

Dallenbach also pointed out a difference between Moore’s death and those of the 217 people killed when an EgyptAir jetliner plunged into the ocean Sunday.

“Greg was excited about the race, doing what he loved to do the most. His life went without pain, in his chosen profession.

“On the other side, the 217 people who went down in that airplane didn’t have those things going for them.”

Moore’s death is the third in four years in CART events. Jeff Krosnoff of La Canada was killed during a race at Toronto in 1996, and Gonzalo Rodriguez of Uruguay was killed while practicing last month at Laguna Seca Raceway.

His is also the third racing fatality in Southern California this year. Casey Diemert, a sprint car driver, lost his life while practicing on opening night at Irwindale Speedway last March, and Keith Cowherd, a spec truck racer from Phoenix, was killed during a race there Sept. 25.

“That’s part of our sport sometimes we find difficult to understand,” Dallenbach said. “Sometimes we go for years without the experience, and sometimes we can’t get through the season without it.

“It’s always hard to lose anyone, but Greg was not only a real competitor and a real friend, he had a shine about him that made him special.”

Although Sunday’s race was Dallenbach’s last as a chief steward, he plans to continue in a consulting capacity and will work with his successor during the transition.

“As far as I’m concerned, in whatever capacity or role I’m involved, I will continue to look for safer ways to build cars and tracks, and find better ways to protect the drivers. I plan to take a long, hard look at each one.”

Scott Atherton, president of California Speedway, said the accident will be investigated to determine if there is anything different that could be done with the track or the cars, but that accidents such as Moore’s were “an unfortunate element of the sport.”

Private services for Moore will be held Wednesday at 2 p.m. at St. Andrew’s-Wesley Church in Vancouver, Canada, for family, friends and members of CART.