Throttle again a sticking point

Allen Lessels

Sunday, July 9, 2000 | 2:13 a.m.

LOUDON, N.H - It is one of the simple pieces and functions of a racing car.

No fancy-schmancy, high-tech, computer-glitz stuff here. No bells and whistles.

The throttle. The giver of the gas.

Pedal to the metal and steel linkage goes into action and pulls open the butterfly valves on top of the carburetor, gas flows in and internal combustion occurs, and off you go.

"It's simple, just nuts and bolts," said Joe Bessey, a driver himself and owner of Geoff Bodine's Winston Cup car. "It's really basic. One of the most basic pieces of the car."

Simple. Basic.

And pointed to as a possible reason for the deaths of Adam Petty two months ago and Kenny Irwin Friday in terrible Turn 3 crashes at New Hampshire International Speedway.

NASCAR recently announced that it could determine no definitive reason for the Petty crash. Irwin's death Friday, under similar circumstances, reopened debate and speculation on stuck throttles in the Winston Cup garages and throughout the sport this weekend.

The throttles on the cars of Irwin and Petty may or may not have stuck, sending them slamming into the outside cement wall of Turn 3. But NASCAR no doubt again will be looking at the possibility.

It's a simple system with deadly consequences if something goes wrong.

The pedal on the floor - hung on many cars as it is on most passenger cars - can catch on the thick, insulated floor mat and that can keep the throttle open and the gas flowing when it should be shut off.

Or the steel linkage - most passenger car gas pedals are connected to the carburetor by cable - that connects most race gas pedals to the carburetors past the firewall can get hung up on another piece of equipment. Or there can be a more mechanical problem, such as something breaking inside the carburetor.

"There's so many things, just a lot of things," said Dale Jarrett, last year's Winston Cup champion. "The air cleaner can do it. They may get it tightened down more at the track than they did at the shop. They may get here and the cowl was actually at one place at the shop and they get here and the template needs to fit a little better across the hood and they beat the cowl piece down and then you've lost some clearance and it can get hung.

"The actual pedal can get hung on the mat inside the car. If you've got tape around the air cleaner, a piece of tape can come down. So there are just endless things."

Drivers through the garage addressed throttles with their crews and talked of times they have had to deal with the problem.

"I've had a throttle hang and it's the worst feeling a driver can ever have," Jarrett said. "I told my son Jason, he's had it happen twice already, I told him he's experienced the worst thing, that and fire. It's just the most helpless feeling, especially on these shorter type racetracks where you have no banking. Your first reaction is to stomp on the brakes and that basically doesn't do anything when you're going wide open. So it's a terrible feeling."

It's up to each driver and his crew to check and re-check for problems and not wait for NASCAR to come up with an answer, Jarrett said.

At the same time those in the garage area were confident NASCAR - which has a history of learning from accidents - will look closely at these.

Rusty Wallace talked of his earlier days of racing and a piece of metal on the pedal that came over the top of the shoe - picture a toe clip on a bicycle. If the pedal stuck, it could be pulled back up with the driver's toe.

One problem with that system is that many of the Winston Cup drivers brake with their right foot and thus need their foot more free.

Jim Long, crew chief for Bodine, said other ideas have been tossed around. They include an engine kill switch on the steering wheel or maybe even a cord attached to the driver's wrist - like one on a personal watercraft - that could kill the engine even more quickly. Currently, there are two kill switches, one for safety workers to the right of the driver and the other on the dashboard. But heading for a crash, there is little time to reach far for a switch.

If something needs to be done with throttles, NASCAR will take care of it, Long said.

"NASCAR has been real good with that," he said. "They tried half a dozen things and, 'boom,' came up with roof flaps. That's one of the greatest inventions they've had since I've been in the sport."

The flaps keep the cars from flying as they did during spectacular crashes during the late '80s.

"They've done wonders for those horrific Daytona wrecks," Bessey said. "They keep the car from flying through the air. I think maybe it's time to look at something different."