Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: NASCAR must consider HANS device

Thursday, Oct. 19, 2000 | 2:35 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand is a Las Vegas Sun sportswriter. Reach him at bh@vegas.com or 259-4089. Regular columnist Ron Kantowski is takling the day off.

The tragic death last Friday of NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver Tony Roper in a racing accident at Texas Motor Speedway should serve as a sobering wake-up call for the sport's sanctioning body.

After all, the folks in Daytona Beach, Fla., merely hit the snooze button after two other promising drivers -- Busch Series competitor Adam Petty and rising Winston Cup star Kenny Irwin -- died earlier this year in separate accidents in New Hampshire.

To be fair, NASCAR instituted changes in an attempt to slow down its Winston Cup cars at New Hampshire in the wake of the deaths of Petty and Irwin. NASCAR mandated speed-limiting restrictor plates for the September Winston Cup race in Loudon and approved a device that would kill the engine in case of a stuck throttle -- which is believed to have been the cause of both Petty's and Irwin's accidents.

But what NASCAR should have done -- and must now do in the wake of this latest tragedy -- is make it mandatory that all of its drivers in its top three divisions (Winston Cup, Busch Series and Craftsman Trucks) wear the new HANS head and neck restraint device during all oval races.

The HANS device is a yolk-and-collar mechanism to which a driver's helmet is tethered and allows the head and neck to move as one entity rather than the head moving violently from front to back or side to side in a crash.

The HANS device was invented by Dr. Robert Hubbard, a professor in the College of Engineering at Michigan State University, in collaboration with his brother-in-law, longtime IMSA sports-car driver Jim Downing.

Petty, Irwin and Roper all died as a result of broken necks -- an injury that can be "95-percent eliminated" with the use of the HANS device, according to Downing.

"It's impossible to say for sure, of course, but we believe that both Kenny Irwin and Adam Petty would have gotten out of their cars had they been wearing (the Hans device)," Downing said this week from his Atlanta office.

Independent technical and medical testing appears to back up Downing's claim. Following extensive tests by DaimlerBenz, Formula One will require all of its drivers to wear the device during races in 2001. American open-wheel series CART has been testing the device this year and is expected to follow F1's lead in making the device mandatory next season.

Dr. Steve Olvey, CART's director of medical affairs, is convinced that the use of the HANS device would dramatically reduce the fatalities and paralyzing injuries suffered by drivers in violent rear-impact and head-on collisions with concrete walls.

"The HANS device is very good in decreasing the loads put on the neck in the event of any kind of crash," Olvey told the Sun earlier this year. "All of the studies done have shown that this decreases the loads put on the neck in any type of crash and should decrease the chances of neck injuries."

While approximately 20 Winston Cup drivers have ordered the HANS device, only Brett Bodine and Scott Pruett wear it regularly during races. NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver Jack Sprague also wears the device.

NASCAR often has been at the forefront in motor sports safety. Now it's time for it to do the right thing and make the HANS device as integral a part of stock-car racing as the safety helmet and roll cage.