NASCAR’s Hidden History: 1970 Riverside Gallery

[SS427]

Originally Posted by tjs44

Open face helmets ,no head and neck restraints,no “race”seats.A lot drivers died in many diff series in the”good old” days.

I think the statistics are still very low all things considered. If I did the math correctly 'only' 26 drivers have died during a NASCAR race since 1940 as a direct result of a crash which is pretty low considering there were little safety factors built into these cars in the early days. I only added up the stock car races/qualifying runs and not other NASCAR events such as Midgets or Sportsman series as well as others. I also did not consider test sessions or drivers who died of medical conditions during a race. The numbers did go from a high of 7 in the 1950's to 2 in 2000's and 0 in the 2020's so obviously there was great improvement in safety.

I believe many more drivers died in the other race series than in the NASCAR races as well of which I did not add those statistics up. As a comparison, 29 pilots have died in 60 years of Reno Air races though admittedly if you crash an airplane during a race, your odds of surviving are slim to none regardless of how many safety innovations came into play.