Safety Crews - What It's Really Like

Halfway through the practice session, we had our first on-track incident. One of the cars lost an engine and oiled the track. My radio headset had been pretty quiet so far, but then it started to crackle with information. Race control dispatched one of the safety trucks to put speedy dry on the track, then immediately ordered the safety car to do a track inspection.

The pit road team and I headed onto the track to check for any pieces of metal that might have been left by the expired motor. We found only one quarter-sized piece of the engine block. Surprisingly, we also found an assortment of screws, rivets, bolts, and a screwdriver. None of this made me feel any safer as I stood next to the wall during the green-flag sessions.

Suddenly, G.B. was on the radio telling me there were reports of oil on pit road and to go check it out. I went back across the pit wall, and sure enough, there was a 5-inch-wide streak going from the beginning of pit road all the way around the turn. I reported what I had found, and it was deemed inadvisable to send the track truck down the crowded pit road. So we cleaned up the oil the old-fashioned way.

Out came the buckets of speedy dry and the brooms. I did more sweeping that day than I have in the last 20 years. The big problem was that the track went green for the rest of practice while we were cleaning up, so for the next 20 minutes we swept and avoided cars as they went in and out of the pits.

The rest of the afternoon went by pretty quietly for us on pit road, and the few spins that occurred were on the other side of the track and someone else's responsibility.

After qualifying ended for the ARCA RE/MAX Series cars, it was time for the first race of the day: the 100-lap season finale for the ARCA Lincoln Welders Truck Series. About a third of the way into the race, what I had feared actually happened. Two trucks got together at the exit of the fourth turn, sending one spinning across the track. He collected two more trucks along the way, and all three of them slammed into the pit wall a few feet behind me before coming to a stop at the entrance to the first turn. G.B. and Barry ran past me to attend to the drivers, and I headed onto the track to direct traffic.

I've seen this done thousands of times by safety workers all across the country. It is actually pretty simple: Position yourself ahead of the accident scene with one arm straight up in the air and the other pointing the cars to either go high or low. The technique is not the problem. The problem lies in standing in the middle of the racetrack with a pack of cars whizzing by you at 50 to 60 mph. It gave me a brand-new respect for the people who do it every week.

The track was cleaned, and the rest of the race went by without incident. Soon, it was time for the feature event.

There was little for us to do during the pre-race activities, so we just peeled the uniforms down a bit and tried to cool off before the 200-lapper began. Once the race went green, it was the usual slam-bang affair that constitutes an ARCA short track event. Thirteen yellow flags took up 66 laps, but none of the crashes were on the frontstretch, so I had a pretty easy night. The hardest thing was watching for debris falling off wrecked race cars coming down pit road and dodging flying lug nuts after pit stops.

After the checkered flag fell, we switched to more of a security role as we positioned ourselves around some of the cars to ensure that tempers didn't get too high and that no one did anything stupid.

Once the crowd had filed out and most of the teams were putting the finishing touches on packing up their haulers, we were finally able to get out of the firesuits and wind down. By then it was near 11 p.m. and we had been at the track for almost 15 hours. We headed up the banking and out the gate, where we met with the guys who had been on duty in the track safety trucks. G.B. introduced me, and I told them about this story. Their reaction meant a lot to me. One of them shook my hand and told me that I had done a fine job and I could come back and work with them anytime I was in the area.

I appreciate the invitation, but I think from now on I will just stay inside the media center.