[The Champ]

Originally Posted by MikeNoun

Champ, they do a 3-wide start at Indy because it's TRADITION, not because the drivers like it. The Indy 500 is a spectacle, the biggest single automotive event in the world, and with it goes pageantry.

Indy is what Indy is. Once again, if they can start the race 3 wide, they can restart the race 3 wide.

And my stats aren't off. There's a death every 3.8 years at Indy, and that's JUST THE INDY 500, whereas your selective stats include over 700 races between all series that run Daytona since 1959, including the "big boys" of Grand National/Winston/Nextel/Sprint, and the lesser series of Busch/Nationwide, plus the the hundreds of shootout races, qualifiers, and ARCA races held at Daytona. They're all considered "NASCAR".

You also include practice and qualifying session deaths in your stats, which I didn't do. That sways the dangers of the Indy 500 even further towards my point.

Did you even read my last post on the topic? Obviously not...

Your 3.8 years stat is extremely selective - it only counts the years from the first fatality to the last fatality. It ignores the years before the first fatality and the 41 years since the last one.

In the last 41 years there has not been a single fatality during the Indy 500. That's a very good thing. But by your claimed statistic of one death every 3.8 years - there should have been another 10.8 fatalities. But there hasn't even been a single ONE.

How do you justify your continued claim of 3.8? You can't. To even post that was an attempt to hide from the truth.

In the modern day era (1970 - present - selective - but fair to both sides based on safety improvements made to both sports) there has not been a fatality during the Indy 500 (see previous post about Swede Savage), but there has been a fatality during the Daytona 500.

There have been another 25 deaths at the Indy 500 during practice, testing, and qualifying. So that's 39 deaths at the Indy 500, plus another 12 died when drivers used to ride with mechanics on board (pre-war).

Grand total of 51 deaths at Indy since 1913, or one death every 2 years.

Most of those deaths occurred before Daytona was even built. When you questioned my numbers I boiled things down to just the actual race, but now you want to add practice in. Okay, fine... But let's also be fair any at least use a semblance of current day safety...

Modern day era:

Indy 500 Race

1973 - Swede Savage (died in hospital July 2, death may have been from contaminated blood transfusion rather than directly from the crash)

Indy 500 Practice/Qualifying

1972 - Jim Malloy
1973 -Art Pollard
1982 - Gordon Smiley
1992 - Jovy Marcelo
1996 - Scott Brayton

Daytona 500 Race

2001 - Dale Earnhardt

Daytona 500 Practice/Qualifying

1972 - Friday Hassler
1980 - Ricky Knotts
1994 - Neil Bonnett
1994 - Rodney Orr

Open wheel racing is more dangerous (obviously) when wheel-to-wheel contact occurs, plus the fact IndyCars don't have roll cages, or metal all around the driver to absorb the impact.

While they have been 2 more deaths since 1970 at the Indy 500 (and the practice/qualifying for the race) in the modern day era - I don't thing you can "obviously" determine that Indy Cars racing is more dangerous.

They are different.