Yellow Yellow Yellow: The Indycar Safety Team (2017) - full transcript

....

There are questions

that very few people

ever have to ask themselves

in their lifetime,

but every IndyCar driver

probably has to ask at least

once in their career.

"What happens

when I hit a wall

at 200 miles per hour?

What will the forces

more than 100 times of

the Earth's gravity feel like

when it compresses my body?

Who will come for me?

Who will help me?"

....

waiting patiently in trucks,

any number of ways.

And they're the first

to arrive on the scene

when this happens.

IndyCar is unique

in the motorsports world

in that they are

one of the few racing series

that support a dedicated

safety team that travels

to all of the races.

We're all firefighters,

paramedics on the trucks.

We have three trucks,

four guys on each truck.

There's an incident

command person,

or the crew leader,

there's a paramedic,

and then

we have two firefighters

that sit in the back seats.

Their responsibility is

the seat they're sitting in.

So the driver

is the crew leader,

front seat's the paramedic,

firefighter one

sits behind the paramedic,

firefighter two

sits behind the driver.

Safety team manager, Mike Yates

and crew leader, Mike Kareya

are veteran members

of the Holmatro safety team.

Much of their work begins

before a car even sets

a tire on the track.

Usually, it's the day before

the activity starts

on the weekend.

Mike and I will come

to the track in the morning.

Try to do a couple of laps

around the track, just to see

if there's anything different

from what we've done from

last year to this year.

There's changes

that have to be made

a lot of times,

but they're small,

and they can be handled

before the weekend starts.

Our trucks themselves,

the way they're hauled now,

they're on an open hauler

So we have to take all of

that stuff out of the trucks

and set the trucks up.

That takes another two

or three hours usually.

We have a 40-gallon tank

of water in our truck.

This is our hose,

it's operated by

nitrogen pressure.

This is our IndyCar starter.

If the car stalls

we use these

to restart the car

and send him on his way.

It's what the teams use

when they're in the pits,

starting their cars.

This is just

Oil-Dri containers.

We get oil on the track,

we just put this down

and brush that oil

till we get

racing conditions again.

This is lifting harnesses

for the cars.

This is what we pull out...

We have an incident on

the track, or a car blows apart

or we can't pull it in.

These are all used

to keep the driver...

We get the driver out of

the car in a safe manner,

not dragging out

any problems with him.

This is the AP units

for the Holmatro tools,

they're electric.

Got the core technology

on them.

This one's hooked up

to the cutter.

The other APU,

it's hooked up

to our spreader,

so if we have to spread

the compartment of the car

and get some intrusion,

in the car with a driver

to get him out.

We'll put those in there

and spread the cockpit

of the car out.

Every track on

the IndyCar schedule

already has

a team of firefighters,

paramedics and doctors,

who manage safety at

the individual tracks.

working with local

safety teams is

an essential part of the job

I usually like to have

anywhere from three

to four local trucks.

And that's in combination

with our three trucks.

Most of the time,

or if not always,

they've been around

their race track

for a long time.

So I take as much information

from them as they get from me.

And so what we do

is we have safety

meetings every day

and explain to them what

their responsibilities will be.

We do not dispatch on sight.

We do want to dispatch

from Control.

Make sure they

tell you when to go.

They got a pretty good

sight lines here, so they

can get you out there safely.

But we want you

to get out there

as quickly as we can

'cause we want somebody

making sure that

the driver is okay.

When a crash happens,

the safety team functions

under a system of

procedures and protocols

that dictates the role

every team member

plays on the track.

Our dispatcher's been

with us for a while.

His name's Jim Norman.

And he's up in the tower,

he can see everything

that's going on.

He'll call the triple yellow.

Yellow flags.

Yellow flags.

Proceed with caution.

It's too close.

Proceed with caution.

It's too close.

There's three different

areas that we came up with.

There's your impact area,

where the car makes

impact with the wall.

There's where the car

comes to rest.

And then you have

a debris field

between those two.

So those are three areas

you need to

address immediately.

The truck that's

closest to the car

would go to the car.

The truck that's going

to the impact point will

stop at the impact point.

The paramedic goes

straight to the driver

to see if he's injured,

and if so,

what type of injury.

Are we gonna be able

to send him standing up

and ambulatory,

or are we gonna have to

extract him from the car,

those sorts of decisions.

Firefighter one

always comes off with a

pressurized water container.

Firefighter two comes off

with a five-gallon Oil-Dri

container.

It's got Oil-Dri in it.

His job, if they

broke their oil line,

he dams up the oil,

keeping it contained

to the car

as tightly as he can.

The incident commander,

the crew leader

gets out of the car,

kind of sizes up the scene

pretty quickly.

Cause while we're doing'

all this, television is wanting

to know when we're going green,

fire control is the same.

At the impact point,

the crew leader inspects

the damage to the wall,

the facility, the track,

the fence.

If there's any damage

to any of these

he can call in

the local resources and

the track restoration people

to fix whatever

needs to be fixed,

so we can continue racing.

The third truck in,

that's usually

our clean-up truck.

And it will drop its

three-man crew off

at the race car.

If they don't need any help,

those three guys will

start walking back up

towards the impact point

on the racetrack,

cleaning debris.

The other two guys that

are on the impact point truck,

they will start walking

towards the race car,

picking up debris.

Then when those people meet,

they turn around

and they walk back to

their respective trucks.

Our doctors ride

in a separate truck.

And that's our 1200 car.

It's an SUV type vehicle.

When we're outside of

the State of Indiana,

we'll do basic life-support.

If there's any

advanced life-support

that has to be done,

we defer to

the local paramedics

that work on the ambulances

and the rescue vehicles

that are on the scene with us.

Then they function under

their local medical director,

which is there on the scene.

We work really well together

with all the tracks.

There's a respect

we gain from each other

when we're there.

So we try to work as closely

with those folks as we can.

The benefit is

there's a core group of guys,

we work together

every weekend.

The drivers know who we are.

They feel comfortable

about looking up and seeing

somebody that they know.

When a crash occurs,

the safety team

are the first responders

who arrive to

safeguard the driver

before turning their attention

to packaging up damaged cars

and cleaning the track,

so racing can resume.

This looks like the end

of the incident.

But in IndyCar,

these are just the first steps

in a cascade of analyses

that take place

after an accident.

Jeff Horton, an engineer

by training, leads a group

for IndyCar

that analyzes

on-track accidents.

My main role

is accident investigation.

Once Mike Yates' team

gets done with it

on the racetrack,

they package it up,

put it on a wrecker

and it comes back to us.

That's when we do

an investigation of it.

Regardless of the damage

or whether there was

an injury or not,

we record as much information

as we can about that accident.

And we take

pictures of the car,

so we understand the damage.

I take pictures for

the database that we keep

on all the accidents.

Specifically, what I'm doing

is not only taking pictures

of the current damage,

but also damage that

we can't necessarily see.

Just so that we can keep

a complete database

on all the parts.

And then I download

the crash box itself.

Every IndyCar

contains a crash recorder

that provides data which

the accident investigation

group can analyze immediately.

in a mobile office

that travels to every race.

We've got about six pages

of graphs and summary data.

And that includes

the impact levels

from the car,

and the driver's

ear accelerometer, which

they wear in their ears.

So these are the custom

ear sensors that we make

for every driver.

There's an electronics package

which consists of

three accelerometers

which measures each

of the three axes.

So we've got forward,

backward, left, right,

up and down,

the force that's acted

on the driver's head,

and then the little red thing

you can see is a covering

for the speaker

that you use to hear

and communicate

from the team's radio.

So this is a custom piece,

the mold itself is all

custom to each driver.

These are 100 percent

made inside IndyCar.

The data is captured

in the crash box itself.

So it's perfectly lined up with

the accelerations of the car.

So this is our one interface

to the drivers

to tell what

they're going through

during an accident.

The crash box tells us

what the car is going through

and then the ear

accelerometers tell us what

the driver's going through.

During an IndyCar

qualifying session,

driver Charlie Kimball

makes hard contact

with the SAFER Barrier

that momentarily lifts

his car off the track.

Charlie was fortunate enough

to walk away from the crash

while the accident

investigation team steps in

to perform an analysis

of the impact.

Since we have all three axes,

this is the first hit.

So based on the polarities,

so we've got a left-rear...

Left-front hit,

excuse me.

So we know when

the longitudinal forces

are negative that's front.

And we know that the lateral,

when it's negative, that's

the left side of the car.

So we know that

he hit left-front.

So we're looking at a 40G

and an 85G hit.

The actual result of that

when you add those together

was 93Gs.

One of the major

innovations from IndyCar

is the SAFER Barrier.

A wall of foam and steel tubing

that rings the outside

of the track

and absorbs some of

the high-G impact

from an accident.

At places like Indianapolis,

where the speeds are up

in the angles that they hit,

typically, it attenuates

down to about a 60G pulse.

Which is dramatic,

'cause a bare concrete wall

would have been

over 100 in the past.

So they do a very good

job of attenuating.

But with the damage

that was done to that car,

again, you're talking

well over 100Gs

and a concrete wall

versus the SAFER walls.

We're lucky that

during a sanctioned event,

which means either

a race weekend or an open test,

we have a full selection

of cameras we can use.

And that's invaluable

when you're looking

at replaying an accident.

'Cause you're gonna

actually see what happened.

There were two initial hits,

the big one

we just talked about.

There is another one,

probably as the car

spun around

and then there was a time

he was in the air and

not really hitting anything,

and that's about 1.4 seconds.

So there's one, two,

the small one, three,

four, five, six, seven.

There's basically

ten substantial hits.

His very first hit

all happened in a time frame

of probably 30 milliseconds.

It's a fairly wide impact

in our world,

so he's gonna feel that.

But a lot of times now,

we can tell from that

that there's a probability

that there's an injury

or there's a potential

for an injury, and sometimes

it doesn't show up.

So, like, with Charlie,

I'll wait 48 hours

and call him.

For many, many years now

Dr. Trammell has been

involved with us.

The two of us together

work very well.

He's an orthopedic surgeon

with a big mechanical

background.

I'm an engineer that

understands the cars

very, very well.

So we can look

at both sides of

the kinematics of a crash.

We can look at the car

and what went on with that

and Dr. Trammell can

tell us about the body

and what we would need to do

to prevent those injuries.

The biggest thing is

we've had so many

accidents over time

that you can predict

a probability of a particular

kind of injury from

the crash pulse.

So for example, if we have

a 90G vertical crash pulse,

that's just a big spike

in the bottom of the car,

with enough width,

that's predictive

of a spine fracture.

During the final lap

of a race in Houston,

driver Dario Franchitti

suffered spinal injuries

and a concussion

in a violent crash

that caused him to

retire from racing.

We understand a lot of

the loading levels that

are potential to cause injury.

Now, most of the time

a driver will feel that

when he gets out

and we especially look

at the head Gs

and then any vertical Gs,

and if there's

any markers in the data,

which means high level Gs

we calculate what we call

a HIC value, which stands

for Head Injury Criterion.

Then I let the nurses

and the doctors know,

"Hey, pretty big head hit."

So the data always gets

looked at real quick.

The doctors need that

information, we get it

to them as quick as we can.

All of this

graphing, logging,

and data collection

serves a very immediate

need to spot any

potential health risks

to the drivers

involved in a crash.

But it also serves

a much bigger purpose

in the goal to expand

IndyCar safety.

The rest of the year,

we do a lot of research.

Which includes sled testing,

drop-tower testing,

and things like that,

so it's a complete

closed-loop system,

where what we learn

at the racetrack

we can go in and make

improvements to the cars,

whether it's new seats,

new headrests,

safety devices for the drivers.

Then they will

implement them into the rules

in the years to come

as soon as we get them ready

and make sure they're

the right thing to do.

My memory kind of fades out

about the start of that lap.

Kicks back in, you know,

waking up in ICU,

on a ventilator.

At the time I had

absolutely no memory

of how I got there.

Leading up to

the 99th running of

the Indianapolis 500,

the safety team

and IndyCar officials

were focused on issues

that were causing drivers

to get airborne

in single car crashes

during practice.

Fortunately, there were

no major injuries

from the accidents.

And IndyCar moved quickly

to implement changes

to protect driver safety.

By the final practice session,

it looked like

a solution had been found.

But the safety team

is always ready when

the unforeseen happens.

So we were out there,

it was early in the session,

I think maybe an hour in,

and I was running

around there

just trying to do some

draft practice, and you know,

work on the race car.

The accident all started when

the right front rocker failed.

And that's a very,

very rare failure.

I've seen cars hit the wall

very hard and the rockers

are still fine.

That's just not a piece

that, traditionally,

has an issue.

Oh, and a hard contact!

James Hinchcliffe.

Yellow, yellow, yellow,

we were dispatched.

It was up on the north end,

in turn three,

coming out of three and four,

and we were stationed

in one and two.

When Safety 3 got to the car,

the crew leader on that vehicle

called a Code zero-five.

Our codes go 01

as an ambulatory driver,

uninjured.

Code zero-two is orthopedic,

zero-three is a change

of level of consciousness,

like a concussion.

Five is like a multi-systems

life threat.

When we got that code,

we went on instead of

the impact point,

we went on down to the scene.

When I got there, of course,

we were having trouble

getting him up out of his seat.

Basically,

the piece of suspension,

it went in the tub end,

entered me right under

my, kind of, right butt cheek.

And it came out up around

my left hip.

And so the biggest amount

of damage was actually

through my left glute,

there was essentially

a couple of inch diameter

metal rod

that went straight

through the muscle

of my left glute.

I couldn't get my fingers

between his hips and the seat,

so we figured that

the tub was compressed.

And we got the spreaders

and put them down in

and spread the tub.

We heard the tub pop

a couple of times,

and then it became loose.

They realized

that there was no way

to get me out of the car

with that piece of suspension

still in me.

They apparently looked at me

and said,

"All right,

here's the situation.

We need to pull you

out of the car

and once we start,

we're not stopping until

you're out of this car.

So you can kick and you can

scream and you can swear,

you can do whatever you want.

But once we start pulling,

we're not stopping

until you are off this piece

and out of this car."

The impalement that

he had from the suspension

created some issues

with bleeding.

They got me into the ambulance

and immediately

were just trying

to pack the wounds and try

and stop the bleeding.

We stopped by the Care Center

and picked up the surgeon.

You know, if you've got

a driver that's critically

injured in your ambulance,

and you're headed

to the hospital.

And that surgeon is

sitting there next to you,

he sees what you're doing

and the problems

that you're having.

So he's got

a pretty good idea

what he's gonna have to do

when this driver gets to him.

And when we got

to Methodist,

it was almost immediately,

he went straight

to the shock room

and then

straight up to surgery.

I had two operations.

One to take care of

the artery that was hit

as the suspension

went through me.

It hit my femoral artery,

and you know, bleeding out

was the big worry of that day.

I mean, when I think about

the idea of a piece of metal

that size

going through my body

at that place,

and literally,

all that was hit was muscle,

and no organs, nothing else.

I mean, the artery, yeah,

but that could've just

been so much worse.

Oh, and a hard contact!

James Hinchcliffe.

My involvement would've been

the same as it would've been

for any other accident.

The race car was packaged up,

put on a wrecker

and brought back to me.

Because of that level

of that injury, at the time,

we took that back

to a secure area.

It was quite evident

from the video we saw

that it looked like

a suspension failure

that caused him to, basically,

drive directly into the wall.

We took a quick look

at the failure,

that had actually happened.

We wanted to make sure

we weren't gonna see that

same type of failure,

or at least put

another driver through that.

So, immediately,

that was our focus there.

As the parts came back,

we laid them out.

We do very much like airplane

reconstruction sometimes,

where we lay the parts out

relative to the top.

The analysis that was done

on the suspension failure

and some of

the suspension piece

that broke into car,

some changes have

been made to that

to make it safer.

By the next day, I think,

they had already

designed a piece to add

to the lower wishbones,

that if it were to

snap off its pickup point

and not bend

it would slide along the tub

rather than be forced into it.

So there were things,

literally within 24 hours

that the series had

implemented to make sure

it didn't happen again.

Mike sat with me

the next day and we

went through everything.

We went through

the crash loads and the video,

the post-accident pictures.

One of the challenges

of that accident

was the way the suspension

piece had come through the tub,

through the seat

so they didn't know

why he was hung up.

So the goal is to try to

understand if we could

develop new tools

to help them either chop in

to the side of the tub,

spread the tub apart,

something beyond the tools

they had today

to make that analysis

easier and quicker.

We never quit thinking,

especially when drivers

have been injured.

It's still ongoing,

even after all this time.

We're still looking at ways,

whether it's extrication

or to make the car safer.

So there's been a lot

of changes that came

out of that accident.

Between the people that

showed up at the car first,

the experience they had,

the decisions they made,

you know, in that

short period of time,

the hospital staff

and the quality of hospital

that I ended up at,

I mean,

any one of those things

not being in place...

Who knows?

Even as a little kid,

when I used to watch

the IndyCar races,

for me,

what fascinated me

apart from the racing

and the technology

and the speed was

how well those people

organize having their

own hospital on site,

with their own doctors

and people that understand

about the job.

People don't realize

how much IndyCar did

for safety in racing.

IndyCar works hard

to improve driver safety

with a team of safety workers,

doctors, and engineers.

But they also have an open

channel of communication

with the people who have

the most to gain or lose

on the track.

I'm the president

of the driver's association.

Our connection with IndyCar

is extremely open.

So it's just pick up

the phone and say,

"We have an issue."

We'll have a drivers meeting

or we'll have an email

that we say,

"Hey, this is a concern.

Somebody just

put a concern out."

We discuss between us

how we are gonna put this to

IndyCar so they can understand.

I'm the drivers'

medical advocate.

The Professional Drivers

Association is really just

a communications network

of the current drivers.

The ultimate function

is to be able to foresee

and anticipate

circumstances that could

produce injury and try and

prevent them before they occur.

We found that

if drivers had questions,

whether it was

head-rest padding,

seat-belt fit, either them

or their team managers

would come see us

and ask us questions.

It's very rewarding when

they come to ask you,

"What should I do

in a safety situation?"

We travel together, so we're

with them, every weekend

we're on the road.

It's not uncommon for us

to be working on the car

after the accident situation,

where we're cataloging,

and the driver's been released

and walks back up.

Depending on what it is,

I'll talk to him and see

what they went through.

It's always good having

first-hand information,

see it they hurt anywhere.

So they're always around,

we're always talking to them.

It's always a development.

And you kind of

pin-point what's important

for the series,

what's important for safety,

for us, for the fans.

Every move we make in IndyCar,

it's very well thought of.

I'm not saying we're gonna

get it right all the time.

But it's not like somebody

just came up and said,

"We need to put this there."

Then we're being irresponsible.

But we're not gonna

get it right all the time.

We give an annual presentation

to the drivers.

My opening statement

is always,

"If you get hurt,

I take it very personally.

If you get hurt,

I feel like I've failed you

in some way

because we didn't anticipate

your situation, your injury

and prevent it.

However, if you get hurt

because you didn't do something

that we told you to do,

because we knew it would

protect you from this injury,

I take that equally

as personally,

and I will be in your face."

After a devastating crash,

fast action from the IndyCar

safety team and doctors

saved James Hinchcliffe

from what could've been

a fatal accident.

In hospital, James started

down the road to recovery.

The injuries were largely

soft tissue damage

through my legs

and pelvic region.

Unfortunately,

the best thing that

you can do for that

for a certain amount of time

is nothing.

As a competitive person,

you wanna push,

you wanna get better

as fast as possible, right?

And they're like,

"No, that's great.

But to do that

we need you to do nothing."

And that was so hard for me

to kind of wrap my head around.

You want to be doing

as much as possible

to get better.

And then once I was cleared

to sort of start moving again,

it started off with,

you know, just simple

things like walking.

I would be given

a step counter

and told, "All right,

this day you're allowed to do

this many steps, no more.

And the next day

you can do this many steps

and no more."

So I would do laps

around my couch

with my pedometer

until I hit my steps.

And then I'd go sit back down.

When you're sitting down,

basically, for two months,

you lose a lot of muscle

and you lose a lot

of flexibility.

Honestly, getting the

flexibility back and some of

the stretching that took place

was some of the most painful

part of the rehab

because, you know,

you have all these muscles

and all this tissue

that's been damaged

and freshly repaired.

Now you're trying to

stretch it out for

the first time.

Man, there were some times

there where it was just

pure agony.

First time you're

picking up dumbbells,

and they're five pounds.

My trainer's like,

"All right, take it easy."

I'm like, "What?"

Again, that's part

of the mental side of

that kind of rehabilitation.

As much as you want to push,

you need to know

where that limit is

and finding that point

was really challenging.

The other thing that wasn't

as widely reported

was I actually had

quite a bit of damage

to my neck.

And obviously,

that's a pretty big part

of driving a race car,

you need to have a strong neck.

And for a long time

that's what worried me,

was that that wasn't

going to be good enough

ever again

for me to drive a car

or road course.

I stopped shaving,

and you know, my beard kinda

took on a life of its own,

and it was sort of a thing

there for a while,

but the fact of the matter

is I stopped shaving

'cause I didn't wanna see

what I looked like.

Because I'd lost

so much weight.

Just muscle atrophy,

and not being able

to eat, really, at first.

It is a really

helpless feeling,

in a sense, you know.

I mean, it's all I know.

Like, racing is not a job,

it's a life.

The harder part was knowing

that I was in no condition

to be at the track.

You know, it's one thing

to not be there,

but it's another thing

to know that

even if you have

the opportunity to be there,

you couldn't do it.

I could barely sit on a couch,

never mind the thought of being

tossed around in an IndyCar.

The support from everybody

that poured in after that...

It was the most

incredible part of this

entire experience, really.

And there's no doubt that

seeing all that support

from everybody,

it really helped

on the bad days.

I remember when I got

to Toronto, it was my first

time back at the track.

And I saw Mike.

I mean, I nearly

broke into tears.

I just hugged him.

It was, uh...

That was a pretty

emotional moment.

There's no words, you know.

I don't know...

I'm usually

pretty good at talking.

I think anybody who knows me

well will admit that,

but there was

just nothing to say.

I had no vocabulary

to express how I felt,

and the gratitude

and the appreciation,

and all that.

So it was literally just

a whole lot of hugs

and almost tears kinda thing,

standing in the middle

of the racetrack, and it's...

What's so awesome about them

is none of them are looking

for any accolades,

or, you know,

recognition in any sense.

This is just what they do,

you know,

and they care about you

as much as,

you know, as much as

they would family.

Because like I said,

this is a big family.

With the track dormant

in the dead of winter,

the safety team gathers

in Indianapolis

to review the previous

race season and train

for the upcoming season.

We have cameras

in our trucks,

so we can actually watch

safety, too,

pull up and see exactly

what they're doing

at a race car,

whether they're extracting

the driver or how bad it is.

That'll mentally prepare us

for what we have to do

once we get there to help.

At this point,

we've got a pretty good

action circle going here.

If Safety 3 gets

to the car first,

his job is to

secure the scene,

pass on information

to the next truck in,

and make sure they know

what's going on.

The thing is,

what you have to do

when someone is injured,

you have to critique that,

you have to download

everything you did

and look at it, and,

"Can I improve the outcome

of what happened to them

in that accident

the next time?"

After reviewing

and discussing a series

of on-track incidents,

the safety team

moves to a workshop

for training,

and to try new tools

provided by the safety team's

sponsor, Holmatro.

What we're gonna do today

is use the hydraulics

up here by the car.

We're gonna use the saw blade

that he's got back here

and we're just gonna try

to cut down to the floor.

Then again, we're gonna

take our spreaders

and try to get this down

and break it down

to the floor,

and just see how quickly

we can do that.

We're looking at

trying to design a tool

that would make it

a lot easier for us to access

where we needed access.

We work with

our technical department,

brainstorm and put

these things together,

present this thing to

Holmatro engineers to help us

develop this tool

that's needed.

You can imagine what

the inside of an IndyCar,

the footbox looks like.

If you see the outside

you know how small it is.

Well,

it's even smaller inside.

We take the nose off a car,

we can get down in there

and actually,

if they're tangled up,

we can use these cutters

in there.

You could always improve

on what you do,

that's why we train.

It is to get better

and faster at what you do

and more efficiently.

Especially working with

these type of cars,

the space you

have to work with

is very confined.

And working in

that confined space,

it's a little technical stuff,

getting the drivers out

sometimes, you gotta take

the head surrounds out,

gotta take

the steering wheel out,

we train on that

so we know how to

do it very efficiently.

Responding to

accidents and driver injuries

on the track

is the main purpose

of the IndyCar safety team.

But they also function

in many different capacities

during a race.

On a road and street

course, we're like

an over-the-wall crew.

Only we work for

every team out there.

We carry IndyCar starters,

we carry the, you know,

quick jacks,

and we get to a car,

we might have to pull

it out by the tires,

get it turned around,

get it sent on its way.

It's a matter of

just sorting out

what's in front of you.

Everybody thinks

that they should be

the first one started.

We'll take a verbal beating

all day long,

it doesn't hurt us.

Now, if their arguing

keeps us from

doing our job,

and it's costing us time

on the racetrack,

we'll kind of

push back a little bit,

but in order to have

the personality to get out

and drive these cars,

they're pretty

type A personalities anyway.

And then if you add fuel

to the fire by pushing on that,

make a bad situation worse.

I enjoy motorsports,

I enjoy being

at the racetrack.

I enjoy all the stuff

in between.

I don't necessarily

enjoy the crashes,

But that's why we're here,

is for that.

And we're here to take

care of the drivers

and get them back on the track

as quickly as possible.

Ninety nine percent

of the time, it's fun.

You get that one percent

of the time where it's

not so fun.

The safety crew

is there to ensure

the safety of the drivers.

But there are risks to

working on a track with cars

that weigh 1,500 pounds

and behind a pace car,

are often traveling

80 miles an hour.

There's rules that

they have to slow down.

And the crew leaders,

especially, will get

on the radio

and they will tell

the race director, they'll call

that team and let them know,

"Hey, heads up

because next time

could be a penalty."

The biggest danger

is something that's

out of their control.

'Cause where there's

been a crash,

you've probably got oil,

you've probably got debris.

So they could pop a tire

when you're loaded into a turn

and you're working

in that turn.

During a race

in Kentucky,

a tire blew on driver

Danica Patrick's car

that sent her spinning,

and narrowly missing

a safety truck.

I had no clue as to

why she didn't hit anything.

Talked to the guys,

they just heard a pop.

And they looked

in the rear-view mirror

and didn't see anything

until she hit the side.

Those are things that

I guess, you've got

no control over 'em.

For the most part,

though, the guys have

been firefighters,

and paramedics,

rescue people all their life.

There's a certain amount

of risk that you're

going to accept

because that's what

we've done all our lives.

Unnecessary risk

is unacceptable,

but there's a risk there that

we're willing to take,

just to make sure these guys

in those cars are okay.

And what about

another big risk

the safety crew faces?

Every now and then,

we don't get a porta potty

by our station.

Sitting for hours

in hot trucks, far away from

the track facilities,

there are certain needs

that can't be ignored.

You gotta go, you gotta go.

We gotta stay hydrated,

so part of staying hydrated

is going.

It's frustrating sometimes.

But you gotta go,

you gotta go.

The safety crew

could be called into action

any time during a race.

Is it possible that they

could literally be caught

with their pants down?

Absolutely. You have to

hustle on out.

That's the bad part,

is if you're caught going,

you just gotta

zip it up and go.

For IndyCar,

the concern for driver safety

doesn't end when

the cars leave the track.

Safety is a year-round

undertaking that involves

research projects

that extend

through the off season.

All of our data, of course,

is in the database,

and that gives us

the accidents to go look at

and drill in deeper

when we do our research

during the winter.

IndyCar has been

incredibly good

about responding to

need for safety improvements.

Any time anybody's injured,

the primary focus is,

"Why did this happen?

What would it take to lessen

the forces below the threshold

of human failure?

When does a bone break?

It's a bio-material

and has a threshold.

Got some elasticity,

it'll bend a little bit

before it breaks.

We do sled testing.

We do not use a real car.

That would be too expensive.

We have what we call

a sled buck,

which looks like a metal

piping structure

that simulates what

a car and driver's

seating area is.

It allows us, quickly,

to change foam materials,

or any type of energy-

resourceful materials.

We have our own

crash test dummy

called The Thor.

Our Thor dummy is

more biofidelic.

So he's got a little

different neck, he's got

quite a bit different spine

and we can actually

articulate him.

Our IndyCar drivers sit at

about a 45 degree angle.

So the modifications we've

made to him, we can

articulate him into

a cockpit seating area,

just like one of our drivers.

Some of the

first tests we did,

we properly broke him.

He was made for

the automotive world,

which they typically test,

we've all heard of

bumper tests.

20Gs, 25Gs at the most.

Our test pulse was

a 70G pulse.

When it hit, he ramped up

out of the car

and we promptly broke

what is his clavicle.

Because of the loading.

The dummy had never

seen a load like that.

So it was easy for us

to go in and modify it.

We've had a series of crashes

that have resulted in

failure of the side of the tub.

And it's

a step-wise occurrence.

You have a minor failure,

the driver hits the side

of the tub a little bit,

and he's sore,

out of breath.

And the next step along the way

is where you have

a little bit more severe,

where they break their pelvis,

break a hip.

Something in that nature.

But each time there,

you're getting a crash pulse

you know how much force

it takes to fracture the tub.

Then you know how much

more force it takes to

fracture the driver.

Then you have one

where the driver's

seriously injured

and you've got

a much higher force.

But got a graph now,

you got an array

and you can say,

"Well, this is the trend

and this is where we're going."

And now with three points,

you can start speculating

what the pulse graph

would look like.

We got a new chassis in 2012.

We saw that

as a reset point.

We started looking at drivers

and injuries prior

to the 2012 car.

Every one of them, to a tee,

it didn't matter how tall

or short they were,

had seats that were very thin.

They all felt like they wanted

to sit on the floor of the car

They'd want to sit

right on the carbon fiber

on the floor of the car.

So a driver's seat, typically,

would have zero foam

under their butt.

And it takes a certain

amount of energy

for our average

160-pound driver

to absorb that.

With the advent of our

2012 car, we were actually

able to put foam in the car

before the driver

ever took his seat.

So we now have a three-inch

piece of EPP foam

behind their back,

and we have 1.2 inches

under their butt.

And that's one of the things

that have made this car so safe

when it comes to accidents.

Can we evolve a car that has

better driver protection than

what we have now?

We'll always be

able to do that.

There'll always be something

that you can do better.

But you don't know that

when you're do it

until they figure out

another way to crash it.

The thing that

I just really don't like

to hear at a racetrack is,

"That'll never happen."

Because I can guarantee you,

it will. It just hasn't

happened yet.

If you can think of it,

it's gonna happen.

We had a big

road course headrest change

we did two years ago.

There was an accident

in Baltimore,

involving Scott Dixon

and Will Power.

It was a really small accident.

It was on a restart, I believe.

We had heard from Scott

the week after,

that he had

a pretty good headache

from that.

It was only like a 10G,

10-15G hit.

We don't typically raise

our eyebrows anymore

unless it's a 50G

and above hit. Thankfully.

So, we looked at

this headrest and from

the in-car camera and stuff

and what Scott went through,

and what ended up happening.

He had severe vibration.

So when you look at the in-car

his head rattled back and forth

between the headrest.

And what we found out,

talking to the drivers

after this

is that a lot of

the street course,

it was just rough.

Their heads banging around,

they were having headaches

and stuff after the race.

It was due to the EPP foam

that was there.

It was doing its job

on big impacts,

the 50G impacts.

But all of a sudden,

we had a new data point,

where it wasn't working

at the low-G impact.

We were able to take

the crash box data,

go up to the crash sled

that we use up in Westfield,

and we were actually able to

duplicate exactly what Scott's

head went through on the sled.

We were able to run

all these materials

on the headrest

and we took over 40Gs

of that impact level

out of that type of accident.

Knock on wood,

we've pretty much

eliminated that now.

And that all came

from an accident analysis,

turned it to the sled,

proofed the information

and proofed the materials.

In a true impact situation,

our headrest does

all the work.

We always say,

"We're trying to put

ourselves out of business."

The day we quit

hurting drivers, we're done.

We've got a focus,

we know what our target is,

and we've got good research

money to do it, we've been

able to do it over the years.

My third question

when I woke up in ICU

was, "When can I

get back in a car?"

Here I am,

laying in hospital,

can't speak,

five machines hooked up to me.

Barely made it through

the last 24 hours,

and my third question was,

"When can I get back into

the machine that put me here?"

I had moments over

the next couple of months

whether I thought

I'd be able to.

But never once did I ever waver

on whether or not I wanted to.

After suffering

severe injuries,

in an accident during

Indianapolis 500 practice,

James Hinchcliffe recovered

during the remainder

of the IndyCar season

and returned to racing

the following year.

You've got this balance,

right, you know,

you're a competitor,

and you're like,

"No matter what

I'm gonna get back."

But there's always that

five percent in your brain

that's like,

"Yeah, but what if that

never happens again?

What if you can't

do this ever again?"

And that was like terrifying.

And I don't know if that

adds more motivation to get

better or what,

but there were

definitely times where

standing in the shower,

and I can't even,

like, lift my head up

'cause my neck's in

so much pain

it's stuck in this position.

I'm like, "Well, you can't

drive a race car doing this."

And so, there were definitely

days where it was just

really a challenge

to kind of accept

where I was and understand

where I was going.

James' real victory came

one year after his accident

when he returned to

the Indianapolis Motor Speedway

to become the fastest car

on track,

and take the pole position

for the 100th running

of the Indianapolis 500.

I came into this month

really hoping that we'd have

a new story to talk about,

after what happened last year,

and I think we did it.

I can't believe it.

I'm honestly, I'm kind of

at a loss for words.

Which as you know

is rare for me.

We're very lucky

as IndyCar drivers

to know that we have

that safety team at all races.

There's no other series

on earth that operates

with that kind of program.

And all these people have

massive amounts of experience.

Not only in medical,

in EMT, things like that,

but at the racetrack,

doing this particular job.

I mean,

they're all very seasoned,

very experienced.

And there's no doubt that

that played a huge part in

what got me out of that car

in one piece, still breathing.

I don't think

there was anything

they could've done differently

or better or anything.

I think that group performed

at the absolute highest level

that anybody could have

in that situation.

And I'm here

as a result of that.

I think everybody

involved in the extrication

and everything,

from the moment I hit

to the moment I get

to the hospital

they have to be really pleased

with themselves.

Not that they would

say that, you know.

Because they're not like that.

But it was incredible

what they were able to

accomplish in that moment.

It's not an individual pride.

It's the pride that our system

is put together that allows

these results to happen.

You know, when a driver's

seriously injured,

and we can have an effect

on that outcome,

that's what

it's all about, really.

They're all invaluable members

of the safety team,

but our IndyCar team

as a family.

You know, to be

able to look after

each other like that.

We're the luckiest

drivers on earth

to be able to have that

traveling with us

everywhere we go.