[eye30]

After just reading a mention of drag racing in a post on here, i then came across this news story...



An eight-year-old girl has died after crashing her junior drag racing car on a track in Western Australia.

Anita Board was on a solo "test run" when her vehicle hit a concrete barrier at the Perth Motorplex, police said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-41964046

[CraigB]

Yeah it's quite a shock, the Board family are friends of friends who son and daughters also race juniors down at Motorplex, very sad times for the Board family

The silly thing is now the do gooders are all up in arms about kids of this age doing drag racing it's probably one of the safest motorsports to be in and nothing like this has ever happened before, it's a great way of building family relationships - keeping kids out of trouble and making life long friends.

This accident is sadly going to affect the whole junior motoring organisation so hopefully they'll make a simple speed restriction from 96kph down to 70 or 80 for kids under 20 runs and not eliminate the junior sport altogether.

There isnt much else I can see that could have been done bar dropping speeds slightly

[Dazzler]

I was shocked a child that age was involved in drag Racing. One of my old School mates was a motorcycle drag racer as was his wife and now his Daughter Zoe Nieuwhof is having quite a bit of success.

Zoe Nieuwhof Spreads Her Wings

I am glad my Daughters aren't involved in anything that dangerous!   

[CraigB]

Dazz, you would be surprised at the level of involvement and precautions taken if you see them in action as they're actually quite slow to start and cant do burnouts like the big boys, they also only run a half track, I think this is actually the first time anything like this has happened world wide that I can remember

More injuries come from kids riding horses - motocross - BMX - Go-Carts - water sports -skiing -surfing than in drag racing, I personally wouldn't hesitate to let children keep racing as this was just a one off freak accident that hopefully a small change for first timers will prevent from happening ever again.

[Surferdude]

The report I saw suggested she was only doing about 50kph at the time of impact.
Be interesting to hear more from behind the scenes. Something odd has gone seriously wrong here.
My 4 stroke Briggs and Stratton mower engine is bigger than the one she was driving.

More injuries come from kids riding horses - motocross - BMX - Go-Carts - water sports -skiing -surfing than in drag racing, I personally wouldn't hesitate to let children keep racing as this was just a one off freak accident that hopefully a small change for first timers will prevent from happening ever again.

Agreed.
Injuries in sport are a part of life. Not desirable but they WILL happen, even given the most strict guidelines.

[mickd]

Shattering for the family involved.
All motorsport has its dangers and  minimizing the risks is all you can do.
The human is only designed to "withstand the impact of running as fast as you can into a wall"