Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain Snooze
I have read that in the early days of F1 drivers would go out partying the night before because they knew they might not make it to the end of the race alive.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by spcmafia
Perfectly reasonable. I think Nikki Lauda said something about drivers crying either before or after the race because the cars were so fast and dangerous. For all intents and purposes they were very fast coffins.
That sense of danger or uncertainty was that necessary evil that made the sport so interesting. Or listening to those glorious V10s. If you excuse me I'm going to watch some racing from the 80s and 90s because now I'm reminiscing.
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The fatality rate is really on par with most mainstream motor sports and being significantly more dangerous appears to be more marketing hype than reality. Most occurred from the 50s through the 80s when safety standards were low (or didn’t even exist)
As best I can determine over the last 70 years. For just drivers.
F1 - 43
Indy - 46
NASCAR - 32
NHRA drag racing - 28
In fact the winner is illegal street racing at 100+ a year over the last 20 years in the US alone. No numbers prior to that but I would guess that the percentage compared to cars on the roads would be the same so we have thousands in total.