Guest Mic Drop - Ashley Zimmerman

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MIC DROP

By Ashley Zimmerman

THERE ARE SO MANY social movements to normalize this or that but when are we going to normalize grassroots racetracks being safe for our drivers?

This is a question I ask myself every time I visit a new dirt track and is a question I have asked myself multiple times following a Sprint Invaders race earlier this year. There is a point during each night in the pits that a person will end up sitting in the pit grandstands, and after sitting there for hot laps last Wednesday, I’d never felt more in the path of danger. I’m a farm kid, I’ve seen 1200 pound horses run through fence and bulls bulldoze barbed wire; I have a solid understanding of the force fencing can endure. Before me was a chain link fence not higher than the pit grandstands, and a few wire cattle panels affixed where the bottom of the fencing had large gaps with rusty fencing wire.

I understand that grassroots race tracks are the life blood of our sport and I’m here to support them when racing at them doesn’t endanger the lives of spectators OR drivers. Yet, we still settle to race at these locations in a desperate attempt for local laps, or series points, or whatever excuse we can make, instead of standing up for the safety of ourselves and the ones we love. It is not okay to allow our safety to be compromised just to keep one more racetrack alive.

Safety needs to be the priority, why do we lose sight of this until someone has been killed or greatly injured? A few years ago, I was at another track, where the car caught fire and no one was around in the infield with an extinguisher. Yeah, fire equipment is expensive so maybe you end your year a bit earlier so you can purchase equipment? Or maybe you have a fundraiser for track improvements?

It is frustrating that we have reached some pivotal point in the future of grassroots racetracks where we settle for track time over the future of our lives in the seat. We’ve lost so many so what is it going to take? It took no time for myself to decide I wasn’t sitting in those pit grandstands. I moved to the main grandstands on the opposite side of the track, and wouldn’t you know it, during the feature a driver flipped right into that “catch fence” in front of where I had been sitting. The more astonishing part to this is a flipped sprint car was still peaking over the top of that fence and had he had just a little more momentum, the situation would have been far worse than just the driver’s concussion. This track raced again the next week, as if nothing even happened without a second look. Why? Well, the fence held, no one was severely injured, why should they take a look? [I hope you sensed the sarcasm in that last sentence.]

Yes, grassroots racetracks are the lifeblood of our sport, the ones who work diligently to ensure the safety of their competitors; sacrificing a little purse money, putting work into fundraisers, and diligently seeking sponsors to ensure not just a safe racing surface but environment. THOSE are the tracks we need to be focused on - this should be the norm!

But, here we are, drivers being trapped in cars for several minutes with the car on fire because of the lack of safety equipment and training, to merely say the race team should have invested in an in car fire suppression system. I feel like sometimes we’re in a completely different universe, what about accountability of the tracks? Why is this not the norm? We hear excuses like they don’t have the money but you think grassroots teams have the money to continually make safety equipment purchases to offset the dangerous racetracks they are compromising themselves for to race on? I’m not being too critical here; I’m looking at the future of racing and questioning why we aren’t trying to ensure their safety when wrecks are inevitable?

We normalize so much in our world, on and off the racetrack, so why have we not normalized safety at the very level we all start at? Why is there a pass for the tracks your career could end at just as quickly as it began? There needs to be accountability, not sacrifice, for these tracks that just try to make it by, simply hoping nothing terrible happens. Crossing your fingers and hoping nothing goes wrong has never saved anyone.

Ashley Zimmerman is a senior editorial contributor and sales executive for Dirt Empire Magazine. To reach Ashley, email: ashley@dirtempiremagazine.com.