@ngpmike
I watched that video, Mike. It's a little grim, isn't it? Watching it, and the car fires, reminded me of something I haven't thought about in years and years and years.
In 1965 I took my girlfriend and a couple of friends to the CanAm race at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. The course was laid out around the ballpark, mostly in the parking lots, but using the Candlestick access roads too. It was a big deal because the modern Chaparrals were just emerging in CanAm, and the Bay Area had some hot race teams in the series at that time. One local, a fellow named Bart Martin, was one of them in his Ford/Brabham. It was a sort of "furiners" versus local "good guys" kind of thing.
It was really a ridiculous course for those cars given their speed and power, and there was almost no spectator protection, just a low chain link fence with a single row of hay bales in front of it, here and there. This is a SF Chronicle shot with Jim Hall (I believe) leading and Bart Martin just behind him, almost hidden. You can see the typical spectator setup in the background.
Attachment:
Chaparral Leading.jpg
We got there very early and parked along an access road where I knew I could park my old '59 VW right near the fence, facing the track. I sat on its roof with my girlfriend. We sat with our butts just above the windshield and our feet on the cowl. We could see quite a bit of the track. It was one of the few areas with a real, permanent, chain link fence about 5' high. A line of telephone poles ran just in front of the fence.
Not too many laps in, Bart Martin managed to get into the lead. It was just as they approached our location. They were really flying. Then something happened to Martin's car. It went out of control, contacted the fence, jumped up onto it, and slid along it until it hit a telephone pole and literally went vertical, contacting the power lines strung to it.
His car went up onto the low fence literally right in front of where we were sitting. The telephone pole it hit was to our right about 25-30 feet away. When his car contacted the power lines, it went off just like a bomb. It was a big fireball and hot as hell. It fell down onto the pavement right after it exploded. It continued to burn.
The really grim part was that Martin was still sitting in the driver's seat, both hands on the wheel, looking straight ahead. Mercifully, he must have died instantly. My girlfriend totally freaked out. We both got light burns on our exposed skin from the fireball. Here's a Chronicle photo of the scene.
Attachment:
Bart Martin Car.jpg
In the lower right, you can see the dislodged power lines. We were to the right,out of the plane of the photo, about the same distance away as the policeman standing in the background is to the dangling wires. The race was cancelled. At that time, I went to all the SCCA events where spectators were allowed. However, I didn't go to another event until Sears Point opened up in 1968. It was pretty traumatic for young teenagers, I'll have to say.
Like I said, I haven't thought about it in many years, but now I see why I have a sensitivity to car wrecks and safety.
EDIT: Spelling error