Jann Scott’s Journal is the story and life of Boulder Icon and talk host Jann Scott. He has been in print, on radio and on TV in Boulder since 1989. Some consider him the voice of Boulder’s soul.
Motor racing has never been safe for the drivers or spectators.  The fiery crashes have been horrendous over the last 100 years.

Improvements have been made to protect the drivers, but as was evidenced by today’s Daytona fiery crash into the grandstands, spectators are at serious risk at every race track in the world. The catch fence at Daytona Speedway did not work. It did not keep fiery hot debris from going  2 story’s into the second tier of seats. 28 people were injured today and it is a miracle that the entire car with a load of high octane fuel did not go into the stands and kill hundreds of people. It has happened before and it will happen again.In fact every year race cars crash into grand stands and kill spectators. It happens at short tracks all over America. It happens at the road courses in Europe . It happens at off road rallies. It happens at drag races, F1 races and Indy car races. It happens at boat races and motorcycle races, It happens a lot.

The racing industry tries to suppress news stories covering these disasters, but it spilled out all over CNN today.  Travelling at over 200 miles per hour it is easy for an Indy car, Nascar or drag race car to be launched into the stands and kill people. It happens. The big lie is that it does not happen or that race promoters care about their fan base. They don’t.

All of these race tracks are not safe. Will it take a major catastrophe for the feds to step in and set safety regs ?? probably.

Nascar in particular sets races where there is the maximum danger to drivers and fans. They pack thousands of people close to the speedway where a car could fly into the stands and explode.  They create races that at extremely high speeds  with cars packed together which ensures that they will have multiple big wrecks.

The races are designed for big screen TVs  with millions of home viewers. Crashes  are the high point of every race. Auto racing has become enormously popular and is a blood and fire sport. It’s not about the racing. It is about the disaster that takes place on your TV every Sunday.

I call for a federal investigation into all motor sport events in America including the Indy 500, the NHRA, Nascar and SCCA. All of their race tracks and city road courses are flat out dangerous, unsafe and thoughtlessly constructed. It’s time.

Jann Scott’s Journal

Jann has driven and raced high speed race cars. He has seen spectators injured at races by flying debris.