Columnist Ron Kantowski: Drivers are safer than you think

Thursday, Feb. 22, 2001 | 11:13 a.m.

Ron Kantowski's column appears Thursday. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or 259-4088.

On Tuesday night, ESPN ran an ad for Miller Lite beer which showed NASCAR driver Rusty Wallace (who drives the Lite car on the Winston Cup circuit) walking through a cloud of wispy smoke with some cool music playing in the background and the announcer, stating in one of those NFL Films, Voice-of-God baritones that men who drive racecars have always been his heroes, because they "risk their lives on every turn."

Well, given the great Dale Earnhardt's fate on the last lap of this past Sunday's Daytona 500, the timing for making such a claim couldn't have been any worse.

But when you do the math, men who drive racecars don't actually risk their lives on every turn, no matter what some of these misinformed, knee-jerk radio talk show hosts have been spouting in the aftermath of the Earnhardt tragedy.

No question, this has been the worst stretch of carnage in NASCAR history, with Earnhardt making it four drivers in the past calendar year who have died behind the wheel in one of NASCAR's three major touring series -- Winston Cup, Busch or Craftsman Trucks.

But as for tempting the racing gods four times per lap ... well, that's not exactly the case. Using averages of 30 races per season, 400 laps per event and four corners per lap, the likelihood of any driver meeting his ultimate demise on any given corner is roughly 1 in 36,000. And that's in a season with an unprecedented (at least in the modern era) four fatalities.

Negotiating the Rainbow Curve during Drive Time should be so safe.

Nevertheless, these righteous "stick-and-ball" sports media types who watch one or two races a year (if that, now that the Indy 500 has been watered down by politics) are having a field day amid the fallout of the Earnhardt tragedy. They want to turn these 200 mph road rockets into amusement park bumper cars, or put training wheels on them.

Hey, everybody's entitled to his opinion. But race fans would be more willing to listen to these "outsiders" sound off about what they think is wrong with their sport if they actually showed up at a race or two to report on what's right with it.

To me, it always has been kind of like voting. Casting a ballot gives you the right to complain. But if you choose not to participate, keep your opinions to yourself.

In that I "vote" with monthly subscriptions to "Speedvision" and "On Track" magazine, here's mine:

NASCAR drivers are foolish not to at least try the HANS device (a collar-type brace that is said to prevent exactly the type of injury that killed Earnhardt), and NASCAR (and for that matter, the other sanctioning bodies) should hasten implementing more forgiving barriers, such as a tire wall held together by a conveyor belt. That innovation already has been introduced (and been proven to work) on the CART circuit, at its former race in Brazil.

But if a driver wants to run around in very fast circles wearing a leather helmet and Bermuda shorts, I still believe that should be his prerogative.

If these do-gooders in the press really want to save lives, they should forget about the 40 guys on the track and turn their attention to the 200,000 in the grandstands.

You don't have to be Benny Parsons to figure out that Winstons and Jack Daniels have destroyed many more families than the Turn 4 wall.