This just in:

My spectating at Daytona was courtesy of the Speed Channel, who (finally) aired all the speedway races live. I thought their coverage was excellent, especially the work of Dave Despain and Dave Sadowski.

What became very apparent during the course of the racing action was the number of times the Air Fences were impacted. I’ve raced Daytona and I’m well aware of impact zones, the walls and the guardrails. I have to say I was very pleased and impressed that the major impact zones had been identified and protected with the Air Fence.

From my assessment it appears that the Air Fence saved several lives and prevented some rather serious injuries. Thanks to the efforts of John Ulrich (and the Roadracing World Air Fence Fund*) road racing and road racers alike are alive and well today. Nothing dampens the growth of a sport more than the loss of a competitor. Though the announcers didn’t (couldn’t) go in to much detail about the Air Fence, a summary of incidents, estimated impact speeds and sustained injuries would be an interesting study. In my opinion it was rather evident that the Air Fence was well worth the expense and the efforts to improve the overall safety of the sport.

Dave Back

*Air Fence is a trademark of Airfence Safety Systems of Australia.