LVMS to raise fences nearly 7 feet

Las Vegas Motor Speedway will increase the height of its safety fences around its 1.5-mile superspeedway in response to the fatal spectator accident earlier this month at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte, N.C.

Speedway Motorsports Inc. announced Tuesday that it is making the same modifications at each of its four tracks where Indy Racing League events are held, including Lowe's Motor Speedway.

Three spectators were killed and eight others injured when a wheel and suspension parts hurtled into the stands following a crash during a race May 1.

The protective catch fence at LVMS will be raised from 14 feet, 6 inches to 21 feet, and the angled overhang at the top of the fence will be extended from three feet to six feet, according to Speedway general manager Chris Powell.

"The plan for each of the SMI tracks is to be in the 21-foot range in height, with a six-foot overhang," Powell said. "Fan safety is our primary concern and I'm comfortable that the engineers that Speedway Motorsports has put on this project are taking every precaution where fan safety is concerned."

Powell said the modifications will be completed by the time LVMS hosts the IRL and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series in September.

SMI president H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler said the safety fences at the SMI tracks that host IRL races will be the highest in motor sports.

"This is completely overbuilt," Wheeler said, "but we just don't want this (type of tragedy) to happen again."

SMI owns the tracks at which five of the 11 IRL races are staged, including Las Vegas, Lowe's Motor Speedway, Atlanta Motor Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway. The IRL races twice this year at Texas.

The Associated Press reported Tuesday that the IRL also will start requiring wheel tether systems, designed to keep wheels from flying off the vehicles in an accident, on its cars beginning at the May 30 Indianapolis 500.

The IRL declined to confirm that it would follow Formula One and Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) in requiring the restraining cables.

Henderson resident Sam Schmidt, who drives in the IRL, questioned the use of such wheel restraints on cars that travel in excess of 230 mph at some tracks.

"When you start talking about using restraint devices, you open up the possibility of those wheels coming back and hitting the drivers," Schmidt said following the tragedy in Charlotte.

"I would like to see a little more research done on them before we start putting them on the cars."

Formula One began requiring its teams to use tether systems at the start of the 1999 season, and CART, the world's other major open-wheel circuit, announced a similar mandate last week.

-- THE ASSOCIATED PRESS contributed to this report.

archive