For those of you who saw the 500 on TV I have to tell you about the close call in turn 2 today. I have had the same seats in the front row of turn 2 for about 20 years now. What this mean is I sit about 6-7 feet from the wall. There is a sidewalk that runs next to the wall with a set of steps at the end of each section of seats. People can freely leave their seats to go to the restroom etc.. and walk along the wall but security doesn't like for you to stop and stand there. The wall would be about rib high for most people. Today when Foyt and another car wrecked they impacted the wall about 20 feet to the left of where I was sitting. The two cars hit with such an impact that there was a rush of warm air and you could FEEL the debris in the air as the cars started to let go. As I watched the cars slide to my right, (literally thousands of a second) on the platform there was a lady standing talking to one of the security guards, leaning against the fence when a portion the section of the body right behind the driver's head came off and and came to a sudden stop as it started to come thru the fence. The support pole the lady was leaning against stopped it. This thing missed the side of this lady's face by no more than two inches from what I could see. She really didn't have time to flinch. She ended up on the ground with three or four other people. The look on her face when she got up and grabbed the side of her head to check to see if she was hit was pretty scary. There was a section of the car laying down below us that measured about 2 ft. by 4-5 inches. I have no idea how it came thru the fence. Now, today is the first time I have taken my wife and 11 year old son. I had always told her that every once in a while a car would hit the wall and come skidding by us. She had no idea how bad this one was. (I wasn't about to tell her either) We literally had carbon fiber shreds stuck to our clothes and specks of it along with paint chips stuck to our arms and the side of our faces. I had to brush it off my 14 year old son sitting to my right. When I got home I found piecesinside of my tee shirt. Thank God nobody got hurt. Even with all that I wouldn't trade my seats for any others. The sights and smells are like a drug. You experience it once and you can't let it go. It is the greatest spectacle in racing! Mark P.S. Danica is the real deal. Bet her dad owned a Buick. :laugh:
Glad everyone is OK :TU: I work with a lot of carbon fiber professionally- braiding composites, layup, and a whole lot of meaningless acronyms like VARTM :laugh: Your gonna have some ouchy splinters from that stuff, the little slivery kind that stick straight up and down
