Transcript: Presentation of Earnhardt Report - Racing - http://maxpages.com/earnhardtisno1/The_Earnhardt_Report

Transcript: Presentation of Earnhardt Report

August 21, 2001
5:47 PM EDT

Note: The following is the complete transcript of NASCAR's announcement into its findings into the death of Dale Earnhardt:

JIM HUNTER: Good afternoon. I'm Jim Hunter, Vice-President of Corporate Communications. As most of you know, today marks the most intensive, and certainly most anticipated investigation.

After hearing today's report, I think you will better appreciate the scope of this and better understand why it took so long to complete. Before we begin today's press conference, I'll allow you a moment to explain what is going to happen in the next hour or so.

First, you are going to hear from NASCAR president, Mike Helton. Then we are going to hear from independent experts who conducted this investigation.

Their presentations will last approximately one hour. To be followed, a question and answer period.

Once the Q and A is completed, members of our staff will distribute press kits and a two-volume report on this study.

Also, after the presentation is complete, a transcription of the presentation and the Q and A session will be available in the media room.

We plan to hold the Q and A session in a very orderly manner, so your cooperation will be greatly appreciated. In the meantime, we would like to request that everyone turn off all cell phones and pagers. To open this presentation, let me introduce the President of NASCAR, Mr. Mike Helton.

MIKE HELTON: Thank you, Jim.

Nothing we do can bring back those that we've lost as part of our sport. We can, however, learn from those losses and honor them in what we do moving forward. It may seem a bit unusual to discuss moving forward at the beginning of this presentation, but in some ways that seems most appropriate because it is the one good part of this tragedy, and because I can think of no more important part.

But to do that, we need to briefly look back.

One of the reasons for creating NASCAR more than 50 years ago was Bill France Sr. desire to improve safety for drivers and spectators. There are very few in our history who have had the appreciation and energy toward making it safe, as did Dale Earnhardt.

As this sport has evolved, so have safety improvements. One can look at the cars and equipment used 50 years ago, 25 years ago, 10 years ago or two years ago for that matter and compare today's cars and equipment and see clear examples of safety enhancement evolution.

Through the collaborative efforts of many in this sport, many improvements have taken place. Three excellent examples are the implementation of fuel cells and the roof flaps and the development and continuous improvement of the roll cage.

Almost a year ago, NASCAR began working on plans for an advanced research and development center. We've hired a director who is putting together a team that will focus on safety enhancements, cost management and developing a vision for the cars for the future. The facility we expect will be fully operational by next year.

The week after the Daytona 500, NASCAR began to tell drivers (inaudible) We also began regular meetings with the manufacturers for the sole purpose of discussing safety opportunities. These meetings have already proven useful in areas of occupant restraint system, head and neck restraint systems, improving the seat designs, better padding, energy and management, all as it relates to cars and barriers.

We've continued sharing what we've learned with the drivers. At Richmond in May, we met with the drivers and owners to provide an update. We also met with them recently during testing at Indianapolis for Dr. Gramling and John Melvin, two of the most famous experts on head and neck restraints, demonstrated the benefits of those systems and encouraged their use.

Manufacturer representatives from Ford, Diamler Chrysler and General Motors also discussed progress being made on such issues as energy management, seat design and other occupant-related innovations. It's also to take note of the importance of the work that these men on stage have accomplished. You'll be hearing from them in a few minutes, and I hope you're as impressed with their thoroughness and efforts as we are.

We learned a great deal from their work and have compiled a body of knowledge that will contribute to safer races well into the future; specifically, a computer car crash model has been created to assist all of us in designing safer race cars. Their investigation provided extensive information about occupants' movement in a barrier crash at a critical angle, which will also assist race car and restraint system manufacturers in their future designs.

Their work includes significant new information on the problem of dumping, which will provide highly useful information to try to avoid another separated belt. Investigation contains an analysis of the operation of a seat belt restraint system under a maximum load created by a critical angle crash, which will assist occupant restraint manufacturers in design of their systems.

We have additional knowledge to apply now to barrier testing and analysis, which began with Dr. Sicking and his Nebraska team along with the IRL last year.

Additionally, there are a number of steps NASCAR is taking as a result of the investigation. First, as you know, NASCAR has for some time recommended the use of head and neck restraints. We've also urged drivers to talk to Dr. Melvin about the benefits of these systems. This year we increased the size of the openings of the windows to help alleviate concerns about exiting their car while wearing one of those devices. We're pleased that a majority of Winston Cup drivers now use them, but we're not completely satisfied. So we've intensified our efforts with drivers, equipment manufacturers and the outside experts with the goal of helping all drivers find a system which they feel comfortable and safe with.

Second, we've asked Dr. Melvin and Dr. Raddin to lead a study on our behalf of the occupant restraint systems to better examine belt strength, how to avoid dumping and a separated belt, optimal installation methods, belt accessories such as pull tabs and spring clips. We anticipate results by the end of this year and NASCAR is prepared to take action to approve the system as appropriate.

Third, we are committing to the installation of crash data recorders by the beginning of next season. Such devices will help drivers, owners and manufacturers and NASCAR study the impact effect of drivers in cars. In the meantime, we're working with the industry on the details to make that a reality.

And fourth, we currently work with track operators to provide the best local doctors licensed to practice medicine in their jurisdictions on the NASCAR circuits.

This is a good system. Since these doctors are intimately familiar with the local hospitals and the medical resources and have regular and extensive experience dealing with serious trauma cases.

But to enhance this system, we're in the process of hiring a qualified person to serve as a full-time liaison who will be knowledgeable about the drivers' medical histories and will coordinate with those local physicians. We expect to have someone in place by the beginning of the 2002 season.

Also, we're currently seeking a fully devoted individual to establish procedures for and oversee future accident investigations.

We will continue to aggressively pursue any legitimate safety enhancement opportunity. Importantly, as with other safety initiatives, we've implemented, we will not rush to fix one thing without fully understanding the unintended consequences in other areas.

While we may have fallen short at times in our communications, it's my strong belief that we have been responsible in the area of safety. We will continue to approach this with a firm belief that even in the sport where danger is inherent, any single death or serious injury is one too many.

We're committed to accelerating the evolution of safety within this great sport through continued collaborative efforts using the best minds and the best technology we can find whenever and wherever we can find it.

JIM HUNTER: Thank you, Mike. Before I turn the podium over to Dr. James H. Raddin, let me add that NASCAR asked two additional highly respected experts in the field of injury causation to conduct a peer review and to comment on his report. Both experts agreed his report is objective and scientifically based, and they concur with his conclusions. You will find their statements and CVs in the report.

Dr. Raddin is a director and principal consultant with San Antonio Texas based Biodynamic Research Corporation, BRC. In this position, he performs injury causation analysis in a variety of automotive and aircraft crash settings. Dr. Raddin has an extensive background in biomechanical research from years as an Air Force physician.

He is the author or co-author of 29 publications dealing with biomechanics. Before joining BRC, Dr. Raddin was Vice-commander of an Air Force school of aerospace medicine at Brooks Air Force base in Texas. He has designed and carried out numerous experimental impact tests with volunteer human subjects including himself.

Through the years, Dr. Raddin has received numerous awards and honors for his work. He is a graduate of the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and he has a bachelor of science and master of science from MIT.

Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Raddin.

DR. JAMES H. RADDIN, JR.: Good afternoon. I will be presenting the results of an injury causation analysis today, and I need to tell you that this has not been the work of one person; it's been a team effort. It's been a collaboration with my colleague, Jim Benedict, with additional support from members of the staff at Biodynamic Research corporation in San Antonio.

Jim has participated fully in this program and would be here today except he had some heart surgery about a month ago and is still recuperating successfully, but otherwise would be here and have a part in this presentation.

What we're going to do today is look at the cause of the injuries that Dale Earnhardt suffered in the crash at Daytona. We're going to do that through the process of an injury causation analysis. That's basically a process in which we look at four steps by which the change in motion of a vehicle develops into a clinical injury. And that process happens this way.

If the vehicle's motion does not suddenly change, you don't have a problem. But when the vehicle motion changes suddenly, it results in displacements of the occupant within that vehicle, and those displacements are studied under the heading of, "Occupant kinematics."

Those displacements always result in contact with something. That something may be a restraint system, it may be a part of the vehicle's structure, it may even be the outside world. But those contacts produce stresses on human tissue which are studied under the heading of, "Biomechanics."

If those stresses exceed human tolerance at the point where they're applied to the person to whom they're applied, then you get a clinical injury. So you end up with a four-step process which has engineering disciplines involved in the first two and a half steps, and medical disciplines involved in the last step and a half.

That's the process which I'm going to go through with you today. But before I do that, I would like to address a specific issue with respect to this investigation that has brought about a lot of attention, and that issue is the issue of the separation of the seat belt.

I'd like to address that first and make that clear before we proceed to our -- the rest of this report.

I will be addressing the physical findings on the restraint system and the physical findings on the occupant.

To do that, I am going to be showing pictures throughout this presentation taken of portions of the car in which a good friend of many people, certainly someone who I respected and admired, was killed.

And I'll be talking about the injuries that were resulted from that. I do that, we're going to do that with as much sensitivity as we can, but we need to do that in order to put this on an objective footing so people can understand what, in fact, happened and not just have some opinions thrown in this direction.

So we'll be looking at the physical findings on the restraint and the physical findings on the occupant.

First of all, the restraint system is a five-point restraint system. This is a photograph taken of an exemplar vehicle, a similar vehicle, in which a five-point system is installed.

That five-point system consists of a left lap belt and a right lap belt that are buckled in the middle. The buckle allows for attachments of a crotch strap and two shoulder harnesses, each of which attaches to that central buckle. This is the area where the steering wheel would go, that's the steering column. This is the seat upon which the occupant would sit.

There were variations in the way in which the belt system was installed. There were variations in the installation in which there was a rationale behind each variation, and those variations had been successfully used for a number of years without evidence of problem.

One of the variations you can see here is the crotch strap which normally would go through a slot in the seat and attach below. In this case, the crotch strap was routed around the front of the seat system.

Additional changes included the attachment of the shoulder harnesses which more conventionally are attached to a bar behind the occupant. In this case, the harnesses were routed around a bar through a retaining hoop and attached to a bar lower on the seat.

Now, what this does is it provides a greater distance of run for that shoulder harness so that when you put a given amount of tension on something that is stretchable, the more you have that you put that tension on, the greater the displacement is allowed.

And that allowed a greater forward motion which, under some circumstances, could be beneficial. But in other circumstances, you would prefer in general to have less forward displacement and it certainly allows for the potential for head impact or impact with parts of structures should that occur.

A third difference in the installation has to do with the installation of the lap belt. Conventionally, that lap belt would come down closer to this position, but with an adjuster of this sort which is a pull-up adjuster.

The adjuster, in order to fit, as manufactured, if you installed it here, the adjuster would be up inside the slot in the seat through which that goes. And so for that reason, this was installed further back to allow the adjuster to be operated outside the seat. Those were the principal differences.

This is, in fact, a photograph of the restraint harness that was in the No. 3 car at the time of this crash. You'll see the right lap belt, you'll see the left lap belt and you'll see a separation occurring here. Normally, through this adjuster a piece of webbing is pulled so that you can tighten it.

You can see that kind of loosely lying here, that piece that should pull through is now located at this point (indicating), and is no longer in the adjuster at the point of that picture. Following the crash, however, it was in that adjuster.

This is a photograph, and I'll orient you to the photograph. It was taken by an investigator for the medical examiner's office, and it was taken at a time when the vehicle was still under the supervision and in the possession of the police officers, the police department. What we see here is a view looking down over the window. This is the ledge where the netting is hanging out the window here. You're looking alongside the seat.

What we see in this area right here is the adjuster. And you see in that adjuster the pull tab that, the end of the webbing which has some tape wrapped around it, and that is still stuck through the adjuster at this point.

But as you look carefully at that adjuster, which has a blown-up view right here, you see that the piece of webbing that would normally continue on to the buckle is not present in that adjuster.

And that's present in a photograph taken by an investigator from the medical examiner's office. That piece of webbing, instead of being attached here and routed up through the seat, is lying loose on the floor separate.

The webbing was separated as found.

When we look at the characteristics of that separation, what we find is a separation that necessarily is a separation under load. It would not occur in any fashion in a cut.

That separation under load started at this end, where these fibers are shorter and closer to the same length, and then proceeded to pull fibers out through the other piece of pull tab that's not shown here with the last fibers hanging on being the ones that extend out to the end.

That's a separation consistent with a process known as, "Dumping," in which an adjuster would rotate forming ramps such that the one end would rotate up to this end, or slide up to this end, and the other would rotate to this end and in doing so would increase the stress concentration right at this point. That is, in fact, what happened in this belt system.

What we see is at the point where the separation began, it began right here, and then proceeded to pull fibers out of the other end.

Now, what's observable as we look at this is that there is clear physical marks that tell us that at the time the load began on the adjuster, the adjuster had the webbing through it in a position that was symmetrical.

In other words, there was not a misadjustment of this webbing in the adjuster prior to load. The way you can tell that is this: Here is the webbing surface, which is smooth and normal webbing surface coming across here.

We do not have teeth marks from the lock bar coming across this tab, but you find separation -- or find disturbance of the surface where the lock bar has chewed into the surface of this fabric in a position that is diametrically opposite and coming straight across that webbing.

That says that that adjuster lock bar was straight across the webbing at the time that the load began to be applied.

This was not a misadjusted webbing. The tear began here at the lower end of the lock bar and proceeded across, as we see here.

The lock bar has a knurled surface to it. It's got a -- that knurled surface for the purpose of keeping tension present. The lock bar location at that end is where the separation occurred because the other webbing was up to this side.

It left a mark that is a diagonal lock on the pull tab portion of the webbing. That diagonal mark comes across right here. And the reason it did that is because portions of this pull tab were pulled through the adjuster in the process of separation.

The mark that we see coming diagonally across it is not a tightening mark with it being this tightened because it's on the opposite end; it's on the loosening end of the pull tab, and that mark occurs because as this separates, it stops pulling this end of the webbing through and as more and more gets pulled through here, it pulls more and more in a diagonal fashion pulling portions of this pull tab through the adjuster, leaving it still in the adjuster as it was found by NASCAR officials when they first looked at it.

Let me show you an example. Here's a piece of webbing, an adjuster. This is asymmetrically positioned as you see here. It dumps and goes to this end first.

That happened quick. I'll show it to you again. Separation in the pull tab continues with the adjuster as it comes away, and that's the way it was found.

(go to www.maxpages.com/earnhardtisno1/Earnhardt_Report_Trnscpt_Part2 for Part 2 of the transcript)

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