First off I am starting this piece by offering my condolences to family and friends of the
one person killed and the nine people injured by lightning strikes at Pocono Raceway. This was a horrible tragedy, that certainly could have been avoided. You must first look at all the facts, and look at it from every angle before placing blame. In my opinion everybody takes a little bit of blame away in this situation, NASCAR & Pocono. I will break down, in my opinion, how each party is to blame.
I will start off with NASCAR. NASCAR waited way, way too long to bring cars off the track. They literally waited until the storm system arrived and rain poured down over the speedway. Again this was way too long. They put all of the drivers, their crew, NASCAR officials, the media, track officials, and (indirectly) the fans in danger. I say indirectly when it comes to the fans because NASCAR's main concern is what is happening on track, they are charged with running and maintaining order on the race track, and everything in between those concrete walls. In that same respect the race should have been stopped far sooner than it was, allowing all the people NASCAR is responsible for to get to safety, in turn forcing the fans to get to safety. I say forcing purely because if there are cars on the track, the fans stay in their seats, if NASCAR throws a red flag for impending weather, fans know without a doubt that something bad is coming.
Pocono Raceway is next. I am disgusted with how Pocono Raceway handled this situation. Regardless of whether or not there were cars on the track, Pocono's responsibility is the fans. To my knowledge Pocono did not announce to the fans t
he severity of the system until AFTER the race had been red flagged. I spoke with Dan M. from London Ontario Canada (@midtownexpress on Twitter) who attended the race
#3WIDEBLOG: Do you recall if/when the speedway PA system announced weather? What time? Was it audible?
DAN M.: "I have twitter and radio. When 51 car crashed we decided to at least come down. We waited to see if drivers would pit they didn't so we walked back towards turn 3 where we camped. Still no rain. We got out from under the grandstands and I remember hearing the cars on the track on turn three and radio saying they were going 2 go green. So at that point still nothing heard over loudspeaker because they were coming to green. We made our 10 min walk from grandstand to camp. It was about that time it started raining. About 10 mins later the lightning struck. And everyone knew that was the bolt. It was so close."
DAN M.: "I just feel it could have been sooner. As we only left because I had twitter @NASCAR_WXMAN".
That is disturbing. I too follow @NASCAR_WXMAN on twitter and I recall his tweets urging fans and NASCAR and Pocono Raceway to stop the race and seek shelter. Then I spoke to Patricia Westfall (@p_west97 on Twitter) from Virginia, who also attended the Pocono race
#3WIDEBLOG: Just wondering if/when 2nd storm was announced over track PA
PATRICIA W.: "It was announced over the PA. they kept warning about 30-40 minutes before the storm actually hit, saying a storm was coming. Everyone was leaving the stands at this time anyway, as it was starting to rain. Therefore, some may not have heard it. Also the cars were still going around the track, it's hard to hear the PA while the cars are coming down the front stretch.
#3WIDEBLOG: Was there an actual call for fans to take cover? Or just that storms were in the area?
PATRICIA W.: "If there was, I didn't hear it because we had already walked down stairs. But the case is, that NASCAR never calls a race until the rain is heavy enough to cancel it. I'm not putting blame on NASCAR, because they didn't do anything wrong. They are working on it. This was a freak accident."
What Patricia told me was less disturbing, but still in my opinion Pocono dropped the ball. Some would say their hands were tied because NASCAR left the cars on the track, but the speedway still could have made it very clear to the fans that an impending storm system was coming and if they remained in the open their lives would be in danger. If this was not clearly stated, then there is a problem.
The party who is least to blame in my opinion is the fans. Some would believe that it is the fans own responsibility to know what the weather will be and act accordingly. This is ridiculous, if NASCAR and Pocono have access to the weather information (through their own real time weather radar), and the ability to let the fans know this information (track PA), THEY SHOULD DO IT. Furthermore as I said before, the race should be stopped in the event a severe weather bulletin is issued for the track in the interest of safety for all of those involved both inside and outside the concrete walls.
If you're serious send me an e-mail at smitty_1333@hotmail.com and we'll chat for the upcoming season. There's no money involved so you must really love NASCAR :)
