NASCAR: No Interest in Speculation

NASCAR President Mike Helton reiterated Friday that Dale Earnhardt’s seat belt was found separated right after his fatal crash and said NASCAR isn’t interested in outside opinions.

Helton declined to take questions during a news conference at Richmond International Raceway, which followed a meeting with Winston Cup drivers and car owners about safety. Winston Cup and Busch Grand National teams are competing here this weekend.

“There’s no question in our mind that at the end of that accident, that belt was separated,” Helton said of Earnhardt’s 180-mph crash on the final lap of the Daytona 500 Feb. 18. “This investigation is to find out why, when and what, if any role, it played in the accident.”

Questions about Earnhardt’s crash have festered since the crash, with seat-belt manufacturer Bill Simpson demanding that NASCAR retract its remarks blaming the seat belt and others offering differing opinions.

Tommy Propst, an emergency worker on the scene, said last week that Earnhardt’s seat belt was intact after the crash. Barry Myers, a court-appointed medical examiner who studied the seven-time champion’s autopsy photos, said that restraint failure did not appear to have played a role in Earnhardt’s death.

“We are not going to go beyond what we’ve already stated, and we’re not going to take on any outside opinions or speculation,” Helton said.

NASCAR is standing by a statement it made April 9 “to bring together different professional disciplines to investigate, to understand, to experiment, to re-create, to evaluate, to research all the things that we needed to do” to determine what caused Earnhardt’s death, Helton said.

“That’s what we’re doing and we’re not going to have it distracted by responding to any speculations going on beyond this investigation,” he added. “We’re not going to make any speculations on anything until we know cold, hard facts and can deliver those to the best conclusion possible.”

Simpson declined to comment at the track, but several drivers and car owners said they were satisfied after the meeting that NASCAR was doing all it could to answer their safety questions.

“The biggest thing is, there’s communication that maybe we haven’t had before,” driver Ricky Rudd said of the meeting.

“Maybe NASCAR’s been penalized or been scrutinized and it looked like they weren’t doing anything, but I’m comfortable there’s a lot going on behind the scenes right now.”