8 Y.O. girl dies in drag related accident

Status
Not open for further replies.
As someone who started racing jr dragsters at age 10, and was ramming around the couple acre field at home on a go kart (with only a sketchy helmet mind you) much younger than that, I can offer some information on all of this. I'm sure I have at least a small bias in favor of jr drag racing. I grew up around drag racing and love every aspect of it still.

This is the first time that I have ever heard of a child dying in a jr dragster. Jr drag racing has been around since 1993. So we are talking about millions of passes down the 1/8 mile race track made. If she made contact with a concrete barrier, it was likely as she was making the turnoff after the run was over. I'm very curious to learn more about this because we have to learn from this, we can't have this happen again, if it was preventable.

This racetrack is a 1/4 mile track that has probably a couple thousand feet of shutdown space after the 1/4 mile. Jrs only run on the 1/8 mile, so they are letting off the gas halfway down the track and using the next half track to slow down. As they only weigh 300-350lbs with driver normally, there isn't a lot of momentum, even at 85mph that the much older drivers can reach, so they're relatively easy to stop. My fastest jr was about 65mph, but I was also heavier than most other cars, and I never had any issue being slowed down to be able to make a 90* turn well before I had to make that turn. If for some reason they really needed it, there's a total of at least 2500' of length to be able to shut off the engine and then coast to a stop.

For those of you in outrage, that is just astonishing to me. I truly believe that this was a freak accident. Think about a little kid running go carts at age 5, or mini bikes, or just riding down the hill on their bike by your house. Freak accidents happen all the time, it doesn't make the results any easier to bear, but they do happen.

If my kids have interest, they'll be running a jr dragster. I'm not going to force it on them, but if they want, they will.
 
Yes, I think you're quite right. As sad as this is, on a per capita basis, I suspect our children are more at risk playing on the street than being in junior drags. They do them up in Saskatoon, and there's more than enough room, and I've never seen a problem, and hope I never will.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top