Canopy-shunning drag racers taking own safety too lightly

When the nitro-burning hot rods last were here, for the SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway Strip in late March, I wrote about the enclosed cockpit canopy the Don Schumacher Racing team had been developing since 2008.

It had been just a few months since Dan Wheldon, the popular two-time Indianapolis 500 champion, was killed at LVMS when his car flipped and struck the wall in Turn 2, driver compartment first. There are no protective canopies on Indy cars.

Different cars, different style of racing. But nerves still were raw around the track during springtime.

It seemed any development in driver safety should have been greeted with hosannas and a fanfare of trumpets.

And so I was surprised, stunned even, when not all of the Top Fuel drivers - hardly any, in fact - and not all of the race officials shared my enthusiasm for the proposed enclosed cockpit canopy.

"If I'm going to drive something with a full capsule around me, I'm just going to get into a Funny Car," said Morgan Lucas, the dragster driver whose father's name is on the front of the stadium in Indianapolis where the Giants beat the Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI.

Lucas was worried about fire getting into the cockpit. But what he and the other drivers and teams seemed mostly worried about was the perceived competitive edge that seven-time NHRA champion Tony Schumacher, who drives for his father, would gain from having developed the canopy.

The theory was that the canopy the Schumacher team tested in January in West Palm Beach, Fla., improved aerodynamics. And that improved aerodynamics would make Tony Schumacher faster than he already is.

Had everybody forgotten Darrell Russell?

In 2004, the former Top Fuel rookie of the year and winner of six nationals in four seasons was fatally injured at Gateway Motorsports Park across the river from St. Louis when he crashed and tire shrapnel flew into the cockpit, causing massive head injuries.

Don Schumacher and I spoke about that in his motor coach. I had set up an interview to ask the NHRA honchos about the canopy. Schumacher frowned. He said it would be interesting to hear what they had to say. He wasn't optimistic.

"Sometimes the cure turns out to be worse than the disease, and that's not a path we want to go down," said Graham Light, the NHRA's senior vice president of racing operations. Light reiterated Lucas' concerns about fire, and access to drivers after a crash, and the added cost of the canopy to the Top Fuel teams.

And so Don Schumacher must have been surprised, stunned even, when the NHRA technical department approved the canopy before last weekend's event in Brainerd, Minn., with the stipulation it be fitted with a protruding strip of carbon fiber - a wicker bill - to offset any perceived aerodynamic edge.

Tony Schumacher was the only driver who used it. He was the fastest qualifier. Then it was the other drivers who frowned.

"These guys need to come by," he said on TV after narrowly winning his first-round race over Terry McMillan, the 16th-fastest qualifier. "We invited 'em to come to West Palm. A lot of 'em didn't come. They had their reasons - their bosses and all that stuff.

"But I don't want to hear no complaining. I just got outrun by two miles an hour by someone who doesn't have a canopy. When we're completely dominating? Buy one. Put it on the car. I get tired of it. You know what a competitive advantage is? A good driver. Put a good driver in the car, let him win races, competitive advantage done."

Schumacher lost in Sunday's semifinals to Lucas, and Lucas went on to win the final. Competitive advantage done? Perhaps. Lucas said he's still not keen on the canopy.

"The question of questions," he said afterward. "Personally, I don't like it. I have seen enough fires. I like the open cockpit."

Unlimited hydroplane drivers used to like the open cockpit, too. Fourteen of their ilk were killed before the first protective canopy appeared in 1986, on the Miss Budweiser and the Miss 7-Eleven. There has been one hydroplane fatality since (George Stratton in San Diego in 2000).

One too many? Yes. Unless you are an undertaker, or owner of a flower shop. But one fatality in 26 years is a much better safety record than 14 fatalities in 31 years. Either these canopies are effective in saving lives, or the racing gods have turned their backs on hydroplane racing.

"When I sit in this car under the canopy, I have a level of comfort in a racecar that I haven't had in a long time," says Tony Schumacher, who'll be in the bubble when the Full Throttle Series returns to Las Vegas in late October. "Every driver should have that feeling.

"I've lost some good friends out here. I don't want to lose any more."    

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.