October 28, 2021 • 36 mins
Tim Baughman, Senior Director of Track Safety and Medical Services for IndyCar, talks with the guys about topics ranging from the aeroscreen to his trip to ground zero after the 9/11 attack.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Skinny with Rico and Kenna is a production of
I Heart Radio. I'm Tim Boffman. Then this is the
Skinny from the fat Heads I Wear Studios in Speedway, Indiana.
This is the Skinny brought to you by Toyota, Rhino
Classified General Tire and Dream Giveaway. This segment of the
(00:23):
Skinny is brought to you by Toyota. Welcome to another
exciting episode here of the Skinny, ken Stout and the
track Dude sitting right alongside Mr Michael Young. It is
bright and early here and Speedway, Indiana. Those guys love
it when they can drag my fat butt in here
and get me going first thing in the morning. But
it is a beautiful crisp morning outside in the thirties.
(00:45):
Thirty seven degrees are so for a chubby guy. Actually
really loved that weather. Michael. I will say that the
show maybe a little rough today because he can't already
remember taking the basic things. So it happens. It's the
little fog in there, so the way it goes, sitting
alongside and we'll join us here this morning. It is
(01:06):
one of the silent heroes. You never hear too much
about him until all of a sudden you need him.
His name is Tim Boffman. He is the senior Director
of Track Safety and Medical UH for IndyCar, a m
R if you will, and UH has also been a
fire firefighter for some forty years. I'm like correct in
that years. I retired two and a half years ago
(01:29):
from the Indianapolis Fire Department after a thirty two years
of service, so a long, long time one of those
UH first responders, and and speaking of that, was actually
at nine eleven on the next day. Keep in mind
he was here in Indianapolis when it happened, but on
day two was was part of the efforts there to
help a lot of people. And UH, we appreciate your service.
(01:49):
We appreciate what you and and all of your colleagues do.
I'm you know, it's uh, it's a rare thank you.
So how did this all start? Did you get involved
with Indie Car. Obviously a firefighter forever and had seen
and done and probably one of the most unsung jobs
(02:10):
that a person can do. And then to find yourself
as a firefighter in in Indianapolis to working at the
Indianapolis Motor Speedway and then now the director of safety,
Well I grew up in Indianapolis east side how high
school kid. Uh. Uh Scott Rimke and I grew up.
It goes back together back to how days. But Uh,
(02:32):
I went to UH a Methodist Hospital paramedic program in
one and UH, let's pursuing my paramedicine. UH, you know,
skill set, and part of that program was to come
out to the speedway and work somewhat like an internship.
And you know, we first aid stations take care of
(02:54):
the infield, the old infield, you know at at I
MS and for him there the passion of racing and
everything just continued and they end up hiring me to
work in the garage area as a paramedic and then
in the pits and as it rolled through for years,
and then I continued on and got hired by the
(03:15):
fire department in ninete and in parallel I did both things.
I did racing and the fire department paramedic work. And
my first race was two to Indianapolis Motor Speedway working
that event and then um, it's just one thing rolled
into another's My career advanced and they UM I got
(03:39):
tagged out to work the Hoosier hundred in nineteen eighty
or nine one and there was a horrific accident there
and I tell everybody it's virtually used every trauma skill
set that that was that we knew at the time.
And um Dr Bach heard about it, who was the
(04:01):
medical director for IndyCar at that time, and I M S.
And he basically said, would you want to be a
paramedic on our safety team? So I worked actually on
the track my first year on the safety team and
that's how, you know, it just flowed from there the
whole time. You know. Obviously we started traveling in ninety six.
(04:22):
Um I M. S. Was incredible at that time because
we had the brickyard, we had the five hundred, we
had Formula one. You know. It was it was getting
all these different flavors of racing, um you know, in
one you know venue. But then we started traveling in
ninety six and now we're taking it, you know, taking
it on the road, you know, and uh juggling family juggling,
(04:45):
racing juggling my career. Uh. I was just very fortunate
to have those opportunities. As the traveling began. Was that
the first time that a medical team actually traveled with
a series or a circuit for the entire season. No, actually, uh,
the CART Safety team Uh back when if you remember
(05:07):
Lan Bromley and uh Davy and that that group we're
traveling with CART that was with trammell And and alv
was with that group. You know, it was when when
there was somewhat of a split going on. So those
folks actually started in the early eighties, um And about
the same time. It's just in a parallel, different time
(05:29):
frame because we were working just Indie at that time
until we started traveling in ninety. Yeah, such a developed
skill set, um And, and the fans at home might
not It's it's not something I guess you would cross
your mind unless you were actually racing one of the cars,
or if you had a child or something, racing an
open wheel car something where they slide their legs down
(05:52):
into and and the seat is actually part of the
car and your body becomes part of that seat. I
mean it you're basically entombed inside of that car. Uh
to strap yourself in to deal with the g forces
and maintain control of the car and keep them as
safe as possible. But you know, the fans at home
until maybe you see something bad happen. You know, you
(06:12):
don't think of, oh my goodness, how are they going
to get that person out of that car? So it's
such a developed skill set that you guys have had
to learn and maintain and get better at all along
the way. That. UM, I'm sure that for mothers and
fathers and the racers across the land, we're really happy
to hear that you're going to travel with a series
because you need those experienced people to get that driver out. Yeah,
(06:36):
it's it's it's truly a different skill set as you mentioned.
But what we look for people who have mastered uh,
the firefighting, the driver extraction, the rescue work. UM. Have
experience to the point where they understand that they work
um in in in very tight time windows. Um. For
(06:59):
us to be successful, we have to be at our
best every time it happens. And so when we look
for people to do this, you know, and they come
to me, we look for people it's a it's an
ongoing process. UM. We look for those folks who have
mastered that skill set of being a firefighter, being a paramedic,
uh and understand that things happen in such a compressed
(07:22):
time period in racing that uh, they have to be
successful and quite frankly, people ask us why we do that,
and and it's probably the challenge, the challenge to operate
at this level the best you can be as a firefighter,
as a paramedic, as a rescue technician, and do it
in such a way, uh that it can make a difference, uh,
(07:45):
when a lot of times folks wouldn't survive these incidents. Absolutely,
I mean you go, quite frankly, from sitting in a
truck drinking a cup of coffee to wide open trying
to save somebody's life in a split sucker. Yes, yeah,
it's it's different obviously my career in the fire service.
We can't put a firehouse on every block, corner of
(08:06):
every block. Um So, nationally the standard is four to
seven minutes response time, you know, to get you know,
a fire fire truck to somebody's house or an ambulance
to somebody's house needed emergency. In Indy car racing with
the Mr Indy Car Safety Team, it's not minutes at seconds.
So we literally are sitting track side, which that doesn't happen.
(08:30):
We don't have fire trucks and animals. Is sitting on
the interstate or sitting in an intersection waiting for a crash,
we're sitting track side and we actually get to see
the incident happen, which is huge part of our success
because we see the mechanism of injury and understand um,
what potentially could happen and what potentially has happened to
(08:52):
that driver, and so it's very key. But we uh,
we do work very hard to make sure that they
have a term called the golden hour and trauma and
the golden hours from the time the injury happens to
the time they're in surgery. We don't save people. We
don't save people in you know, out you know, trauma
(09:13):
patients out on the street. We get them to surgery
and it's part of a system. And with that system,
we try to narrow our window so that we give
the surgeons and the hospitals and the tertiary care an
opportunity to save that life. Very very important stuff. It's
great stuff. Man. Again, we can't thank you enough. And
(09:35):
we have a lot more to cover here with you.
Pick that brain of yours. I know you've seen a lot,
You've been in a lot of different situations. So we're
gonna take a quick break here and we'll be right
back on the other side with more very You said
a little foggy, right, Michael, A lot foggy, A lot foggy,
A lot foggy. We'll be back in a minute. This
(10:01):
segment of The Skinny is brought to you by Dream Giveaway.
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Welcome back to the Skinny. Can't stout here trying to
wake up, apparently stumbling with all the words. Michael's going
to carry the show from here on out. I'm just
gonna go finish my coffee, see you later. Here we go, folks.
(10:44):
Tim Boffman is our guest, and Tim has seen and
done so much with the nt T in D Car series,
and we touched upon in the first segment the reaction
time once an incident happens when you see a yellow
I've always wondered. We have three track safety trucks that
that man several people in each when the time of
(11:05):
caution comes out, how quickly do you assess what's going
on as you approach an incident? And what are the
steps that you take each and every time? And we
must remember things have changed now with the aeroscreen, so
I'm I'm sure that process has changed ever so slightly.
But i'm when you're inside, are you always ready? I like,
(11:26):
at any second something could happen or is it casual?
But as soon as a caution comes out, maybe like
at a firehouse, you hear the alarm go off and
everybody jumps into action. Well, uh, first of all, we
have sixteen team members go to every race cover those
three trucks that you mentioned, and there is different protocols
based on road course, the street courses, and ovals. So
(11:47):
the response is different. Um on ovals, which where we
start cutting our teeth in. You know, it's it's very
clear cut what that response is. A triple yellow yellow
yellow yellow is out. Um, we're there, we may not
see it. You remember that an indie car going on
a superspeedway is traveling about a football field a second,
(12:11):
and a crash shown for an indie car is about
a thousand feet at two mile hour. So sometimes that
crash happens before they ever get to us, and then
they end up right in front of us, or they
slide by us, or it happens right in front of us,
and we got to follow him a thousand feet to
where they come to rest. Our. First truck goes to
(12:32):
the the car that was involved, the second truck goes
to the point of impact. The third truck then fills
the void in between, and we basically work from the
two end points and take care of the incident. But
that first truck is key, obviously, um with that driver
that as we roll out we see the incident go down.
(12:54):
Things that we look at as we visualize what's going on,
you know, it is the is the driver head up?
Are they awake? Are they trying to do something purposeful?
Because that's part of that assessment of whether and that's
changed that with the aeroscreen because we really can't see
the driver's head like we used to be able to,
which is a great thing, by the way. The so
(13:18):
what we see is is the driver awake or appear
to be moving, is the car on fire? Is the
car upright? Because all those things change our response. And
if we have multiple cars, we're pulling out and I'm
driving safety too, I'm looking to say, Okay, he's moving,
he's moving, they're fine. I keep driving until I find
(13:43):
something that that's worthy of me making that initial stop.
If there are multiple cars, those trucks will then break
protocol and we'll start splitting up and then they'll go
to the other drivers. So we always try to get
a paramedic or one of our team members with every driver.
They're they're great drivers, wonderful drivers. Sometimes they're bad pedestrians,
(14:08):
so we want to make sure we're with them even
when they get out of the car. Uh so they
don't walk out in front of traffic, walk out in
front of another response vehicle or something out on the racetrack.
So we always try to get somebody there there immediately
to do that initial assessment. Sometimes it's immediate and you know,
our our trucks are following the crash people are, they're
right on top of it, the cars sliding to us. Basically,
(14:29):
it's like a catcher with a catcher's mit saying you know,
put it here, we're here right here. Other times there's
a gap or avoid and you've asked me about that
offline before, and people say, where's the safety team where
they're so used to seeing us, they're that quick. There
are times when, uh, there's a bigger gap between where
(14:50):
our trucks are and where the incident happened. So there
is a strategy of where our trucks are parked. You know,
we try to put them using historical information, using the
experts out there that Tony Cotman's and those folks to say, hey,
this is a high speed corner. We we've built a
track like this. You know, this is probably a place
(15:11):
where we want to have a safety truck in this runoff.
If we have a big hit here, you know, the
opportunity to save a life. There. Sometimes odd things happen
on race tracks where there's big hits where they weren't expected.
You know, we look at the Roman rogen crash in
Formula one that was a straightaway, two cars got together
and ninety degrees into the wall. It was a gap
(15:34):
between response positions. Those things do happen. I was thinking
about the incident that happened in race wanted Detroit this
year where Felix Rosenquist car and they had a failure
with the throttle and he went full throttle into a
corner where we don't normally expect crashes with the aero
screen now in place, and and that certainly did its job,
(15:55):
How did you assess that when he's buried a car
length to the tire barrier. So good example of a
place where it's a technical part of the race course
normally not high impacts, but yet something happened, a mechanical
failure caused that big impact. So he goes into allowed
(16:15):
higher speed. It wasn't a position where we had a
safety truck right on top of it, because it wasn't
that technical area versus a high speed impact point or
projected high speed input. So we were there. Everything worked,
the track designed, with the tires the way, even with
the concrete walls that actually in fence that were actually destroyed.
(16:38):
They did their job. But more importantly, his car submarine
up into those tires, hit the fence, tires went over
the top of his head, were on top of it.
The car actually end up resting about a forty five
degree nose word up um and yeah, it was it
was definitely a challenge, and it was the first driver
(16:58):
that we extracted uh in a real incident with the aeroscreen,
and we thought that it went extremely well. With the
fact that we we had trained probably hundreds and hundreds
of drills, UM, knowing that the aeroscreen was gonna make
a challenge. It's like kind of like working in a hole.
You have to reach down everything is below ground, and
(17:21):
so we we had to design equipment differently. The backboard
we put on the driver has lift straps so that
we can use our body mechanics better. UM. It secures
the driver more like a bucket, UH, so that when
you do lift them up, you're not going to cause
further injury. UM. And the fact that all the we
(17:41):
used to have four or five sets of hands down
in the cockpit, somebody taking a string, well, somebody doing
the straps, um taking the heads around off. You can
only give about two sets of hands in that in
that position now, so all of our protocols as far
as driver extraction changed, UM with that incident. Unfortunately, you know,
(18:02):
Felix was not injured seriously. UM. We found out that
all of our practice and all of our preparation UM,
it was successful and the fact that we know that
we can do that with with the aeroscreen in play,
and there was there's a lot of work that went
into that. And you know, I have to thank Jay Fry.
Initially when they came up with doing ero screen in
(18:25):
Red Bull, he tagged me out and said, we need
you to sit in on these meetings. You know, from
the design point, they asked me, what do we need.
I brought them a backboard what we normally use. We
measured the cockpit twenty one and a half inches. We
made sure that that opening state twenty one and a
half inches, because that's what we need to get a
driver straight up and out without turning their head or
(18:48):
their neck or their back and injuring them potentially injuring
them further. So, um, all that went into play. They
designed the thing and as soon as we had prototypes,
we were taking it out to Hamot and Glenn Bernie.
We were cutting it. We were finding out how strong
it was, finding out what the how was affixed to
the car, uh how the plexiglass of the polyglass was
(19:11):
was affixed to the car, and what we needed to
do to remove it if we had to. Uh So
there's a lot of drill, a lot of preparation that
went into play, and those all went on top of
our normal protocols. So uh, we we feel it worked
out real well. And and D Laura and IndyCar and
and Canasty was involved in this too. They got us
(19:32):
a tub two thousand and twelve tub that was damaged
beyond repair. Uh. They actually put an actual aeroscreen on it,
frame poly the whole nine yards and we drill, drill, drill.
It goes with this to every race. And it's not
something that we did one time and just pushed it
off the side. We literally do it almost every race weekend,
(19:54):
and we do it in January, and we do our
team training. We'll do it times. We'll take a quick
break here. We have Tim Boffman in the studio here,
the senior director of Track Safety and Medical, giving us
some great insight on the preparation that he and his
team goes through to make sure our drivers out there
in Indy Car are safe. We have plenty more to come.
Stay with us. We'll be right back. This segment of
(20:16):
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of the Skinny is brought to you by Rhino Classifies.
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dot Co. Welcome back to the Skinny. We have a
great guest on here. This is Tim Boffman, Senior Director
(21:23):
of Track Safety and Medical, giving us some insights on
what the A m R Team goes through whenever an
incident happens on the track, how they prepare and then
how they deal with that incident. Some some great insights,
some great stories here to help everybody understand everything that
you guys go through. Um, we're gonna pick out a
couple of incidents is here. I'm gonna pick the James
(21:47):
Henchcliff one. Uh, for a couple of reasons. One, he
was on the show and we had an opportunity to
talk to him about that. But his unique situation of
actually being impaled, so he was pinned inside of the
car are And of course that was before aeroscreen, which
would have made it who knows how much more difficult.
But when you look at a situation like that, uh,
(22:10):
you constantly think, I'm thinking, well, can they cut the
car apart? But you really can't cut the car apart.
I mean there's a person inside of it. And of
course those tubs are so incredibly strong. What was the
scenario there with with James, So James absolutely know the
story obviously. Um, the the suspension part which kind of
(22:31):
acted like a spear when the car went in at
the correct angle into the safer barrier, actually penetrated all
the way through the side tub and then went into
his body and then actually came out and went into
the tub again, so he was really he was skewered
basically on on that part. James was initially awake, um
(22:51):
talking um noticed that his color was not so good,
but sometimes color is not good just because they just
had a hundred tings impact or sevent e g impact
and the body catching up. As they went to take
him out of the car, he wouldn't come out, and
it was, uh, what's going on here? So you guys
didn't know initially, no, no, so nothing was working that
(23:15):
normally worked. We you know, we we take the foot
box off to the shock cover to look at the feet,
make sure there's nothing in there, the petals, the feet
aren't stuck in the petals, took the head surround off.
They were talking to James assassin em and then as
they went to take him out of the car, m
he just wouldn't come out. Well then there then the
(23:36):
now we got to find out actually put hands down
around you know, his his hips, his legs, find out
what what's going on here? Because the way that the
piece went in, it went in and then was flushed
with the tub, so you couldn't see it from the outside.
So um, they went down and came up and obviously
found you know that he was bleeding. Um, and then
(23:58):
they realized, what we've got something now going on differently here.
So a very small piece of this suspension and it
literally turned into a spear. The the him on the
end broke off. It actually become a point and that's
what penetrated all the way through. Well, it's stuck in
the other side of the car. Well, taking the spreader
(24:19):
from the Homutra spreader which spreads out to thirty two
and a half inches, they spread that just enough to
release that and heard a pop and release that point
that was stuck on the other side of the car.
All of our training and training still today is that
when you have somebody impaled or on an object, you
don't remove it simply because it's there and it may
(24:42):
be up against a blood vessel and stopping it from
bleeding more and you could do more damage by removing it.
So in our training trauma training today, you still remove
you take the object with them to the to the hospital. Well,
we couldn't load up a whole indycarr, so we had
to bray break our training and they basically when I
(25:03):
heard that pop and felt a release, and we've got
to pull him off of here. He's going to you know,
bleed out in this car. Um, so that pop occurred,
guys are ready, they put him, put him in you know,
got him out of there, basically slid him off of
off the suspension piece of the impalement. And um literally
(25:26):
from from this is James account of it, because he didn't.
It was incredible that how much he wanted to talk
to every person that took care of him ever and
he wanted to know what happened because obviously at a
certain point he he didn't know what was being done,
but his there's decisions that were made two take him
(25:47):
directly to the trauma center Methodist um there instead of
stopping at the infield care center. Uh, there were decisions
on we got to slide him off of this because
if we had a messed around trying to cut it,
trying to pull it loose, trying to get it loose,
and somewhere we're talking seconds here and James will will
tell you this is that Um. He was lead. He
(26:12):
was in a resuscitation mode from the time when the
elevators opened in the operating room at um to the
point where he had lost all of his blood. And
if they'd have gone fifteen twenty seconds another minute, if
we had taken two more minutes, we have a different outcome.
And so James, um, you know he did. You know,
(26:36):
Mike Yates was head of the team at that time.
Mike was there and Matt Stewart, who's currently on the team,
took care of him. Um. They did some very incredible
things in the back of that amulance that quite frankly,
people talk about today and say, why did you get
how did you got what? How did you think of this?
(26:56):
And uh, And it was all trying to stop the bleeding.
Here the stop the bleed and tourniquets are coming back
in the form of trying to save people's lives. Police
officers are carrying tourniquets, We use those basic things, but
a big tourniquet and stopping the bleed by holding pressure
to give him a few more seconds to get him
(27:19):
to that operating room where he could be resuscitated and survived.
We remember the anniversary obviously of nine eleven. We lost
Dan Weldon ten years ago, so that anniversary came up
as well, and I think about that day and what
had happened, and how horrific and how quickly everything went wrong.
(27:41):
Describe if you would, your time with being in New
York City the day after nine eleven and then being
on the scene with Dan's incidents. Well, actually, at the
at Dan's incident, I was up and I was actually
a fire control so I was over seeing the response,
and so I had trucks out there. And UM, when
(28:04):
I look at the parallel between the two things, it
was something that your mind just doesn't um grasped all
the details. Um and and and stay with you. And
a few few weeks ago when they did the tenure
on Dan, you know, it was we were looking and
I was like, I remember that now. I remember that now,
and same way of nine eleven. You know, we there
(28:28):
were certain aspects until they started showing it that our
our brains and then maybe this is a thing that
God blessed us with, you know, and the fact that
our brains don't remember those things on purpose, you know,
And and it helps us cope and and move forward.
But the Dan Weldon crashed, there were seven cars burning,
there was a driver significantly injured, seventeen cars involved. UM,
(28:53):
and it literally looked like a large commercial jetliner crash
on a racetrack. That's debris everywhere, fires, people up and walking,
other people seriously injured. So but it happened right in
front of us, you know. And then in New York,
if you look at it, you're sitting there thinking what
(29:16):
we had, these two storied towers down and there's nothing left.
And I remember getting off the bus fifteen hours after
the towers came down and walked into a dust pile
and you couldn't see anything. There was, you know, fire,
there's still smoke coming out of the piles, and it
was all very surreal, It's like, and there was a comparison,
(29:39):
you know, when you look at those things and how
we deal with them. And and I will tell you
that all first responders probably some time in their career
have dealt with, you know, something very traumatic. But quite frankly,
that's what we've trained for, that's what we it's what
we were built for. That's why we were designed to
(29:59):
go and do those types of things. Um, after thirty
five forty years of doing it, you don't realize when
you're that twenty year old kids saying hey, sign me up.
Put me in coach, I'm ready to go, and I'm
ready to go. Go go that the impact that it
has and how how we deal without those types of things.
But for the most part, you know, I can be
(30:20):
any more proud of how our team response, Um, how
proud I am to be a member of that team,
and the whole response to nine eleven, the whole response
what we do is it's uh, you know it. We
look at those as opportunities for us to excel as professionals,
and if we excel, then people live. We have a
(30:41):
better outcome. Incredible efforts, incredible stories, uh, and incredible situations.
It's wow. It's just fascinating to listen to what you
guys do, how you prepare. I can't thank you enough
fan for for all the effort and in an endless task.
It's it's also very good to hear. It was actually
(31:02):
going to be one of one of my questions, but
you answered it inadvertently whenever you started talking about the
design of the Aero screen. The fact that they do
include you guys and some of that design and get
your input about what it's going to change from your
end in terms of safety. Certainly, the whole premises to
keep the driver safer, but you know, after an incident,
what's it going to do to make it more difficult
(31:24):
to extract them. I even wonder if there's further development
that could be taken, uh, in terms of maybe some
way a quick removal of that aero screen to help
you guys if and in fact, I mean given a
James Henchcliffe situation where in a matter of seconds you
could pop that off and get yourself some more working room,
but certainly that affects the whole rest of the car
(31:46):
well first and foremost. Um, as a first responder out
on the street, we get very little information about, you know,
cars that are built in factories, you know, by the
big motor companies. We kind of learned to deal with
this is what you see, this is what you you know.
How do we work through it systematically? Um, knowing the materials,
(32:09):
knowing the design and just applying that. But yeah, I'm
sure there's some people that are a lot smarter and
the engineering side of things that are looking at ways
of improving the aeroscreen, whether it's on the new tub
going forward. You're gonna remember it was retro fitted onto
the two thousand and twelve tubs. So there were some
a lot of restrictions that went on to make that work.
(32:30):
And um, you know, and and and it's pretty phenomenal
how they did it. But imagine given a blank sheet
of paper and designed a new car incorporate those types
of things. It's pretty exciting. And that's probably you know,
if you want to frame that. In the thirty five
forty years I've been doing this, we had concrete walls
(32:51):
and went to safer barriers. We've we've had so many
safety We've had the Hans device. Uh, we have so
many safety measures that have have have evolved. And and
that's the cool part about racing is that it's always evolving.
It's always pushing. Even though there's this competition everybody sees
on TV and says they're racing. Man, the engineer folks
(33:12):
working behind the scenes, Uh, the decision makers to to
make things safer. Um, you know, And I have to
mention we are our primary sponsoring you mentioned is a MR.
And MR has been a great partner for us. And
the fact that anything we've needed, they've said, how can
we help you, you know, whether it's a certain type
(33:34):
of device or scope that we can put down to
get an airway on a on a driver that we
have problems accessing a monitor to the monitor, their their
oxygen levels, their CEO two levels, all those things. Because
that driver now is in this that may be in
there a little longer than what they were a few
years ago. Now we have these devices, you know, through
(33:55):
our sponsor and through their support, that that helps us
do that. And and I think it's a system and
we're we're we're a component of it. But I think
track design, car design, our team, um, the medical care
that's set up prior to having a helicopter, you know,
when it we're distanced from out. It's all part of
(34:16):
a network or series of things that lead to our success.
So there are a lot more people behind the scenes
than just our sixteen people in our our our two
doctors and four nurses, I mean. And it's the way
that we're embraced by the racing community and supported and
basically a lot of people say, we would like to
(34:38):
have a team like yours. And you know, some of
my my team members worked recently with the SRX you
know series that came up. We all had some backgrounds,
some NASCAR stuff. Uh, one of my team members is
now the director of safety for IMS. So a lot
of our cross training and things that are going on
back and forth are going to make us better. I
(35:00):
see that sprint car sitting there in front of you
right now, and I think the biggest area where we
can improve in racing is small tracks around the country.
You know, we've lost a lot of friends and a
lot of drivers, and and we've had first responders hurt.
And I think if, if, if we could work to
improve that safety at those levels, Uh, we're going to
(35:22):
save more lives and and hopefully have better outcomes and
and keep racing fun. Once again, Tim Boutin, whether Senior
Director of Track Safety and Medical, some great insights and uh,
I can't thank these guys enough. You go out to
a race track, it doesn't matter if you're a fan,
or if you're a racer or a crew member, whatever,
(35:43):
whatever it may be, these guys are always there. You'll
bump into one sooner or later. Take a moment just
say thanks, because without them we would have lost a
lot of our friends. Tim, thank you very much for
spending the time with us this morning. Man, great great show.
It was my pleasure. Thank you. Thanks, but we'll you
next time. Thanks for being with us here on the Skinny.
(36:03):
This episode has been brought to you by Toyota. Rhino
classifies Dream giveaway and general tire for the latest and sunglasses,
optical frames, accessories and apparel. Be sure to check out
batheads dot com. That's bath Heads with a Z. Production
facilities provided by Fatheads I Wear Studios. All rights reserved.
(36:26):
The Skinny with Frico and Kenna is a production of
I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
The Skinny with Rico and Kenna is a production of
I Heart Radio. I'm Tim Boffman. Then this is the
Skinny from the fat Heads I Wear Studios in Speedway, Indiana.
This is the Skinny brought to you by Toyota, Rhino
Classified General Tire and Dream Giveaway. This segment of the
(00:23):
Skinny is brought to you by Toyota. Welcome to another
exciting episode here of the Skinny, ken Stout and the
track Dude sitting right alongside Mr Michael Young. It is
bright and early here and Speedway, Indiana. Those guys love
it when they can drag my fat butt in here
and get me going first thing in the morning. But
it is a beautiful crisp morning outside in the thirties.
(00:45):
Thirty seven degrees are so for a chubby guy. Actually
really loved that weather. Michael. I will say that the
show maybe a little rough today because he can't already
remember taking the basic things. So it happens. It's the
little fog in there, so the way it goes, sitting
alongside and we'll join us here this morning. It is
(01:06):
one of the silent heroes. You never hear too much
about him until all of a sudden you need him.
His name is Tim Boffman. He is the senior Director
of Track Safety and Medical UH for IndyCar, a m
R if you will, and UH has also been a
fire firefighter for some forty years. I'm like correct in
that years. I retired two and a half years ago
(01:29):
from the Indianapolis Fire Department after a thirty two years
of service, so a long, long time one of those
UH first responders, and and speaking of that, was actually
at nine eleven on the next day. Keep in mind
he was here in Indianapolis when it happened, but on
day two was was part of the efforts there to
help a lot of people. And UH, we appreciate your service.
(01:49):
We appreciate what you and and all of your colleagues do.
I'm you know, it's uh, it's a rare thank you.
So how did this all start? Did you get involved
with Indie Car. Obviously a firefighter forever and had seen
and done and probably one of the most unsung jobs
(02:10):
that a person can do. And then to find yourself
as a firefighter in in Indianapolis to working at the
Indianapolis Motor Speedway and then now the director of safety,
Well I grew up in Indianapolis east side how high
school kid. Uh. Uh Scott Rimke and I grew up.
It goes back together back to how days. But Uh,
(02:32):
I went to UH a Methodist Hospital paramedic program in
one and UH, let's pursuing my paramedicine. UH, you know,
skill set, and part of that program was to come
out to the speedway and work somewhat like an internship.
And you know, we first aid stations take care of
(02:54):
the infield, the old infield, you know at at I
MS and for him there the passion of racing and
everything just continued and they end up hiring me to
work in the garage area as a paramedic and then
in the pits and as it rolled through for years,
and then I continued on and got hired by the
(03:15):
fire department in ninete and in parallel I did both things.
I did racing and the fire department paramedic work. And
my first race was two to Indianapolis Motor Speedway working
that event and then um, it's just one thing rolled
into another's My career advanced and they UM I got
(03:39):
tagged out to work the Hoosier hundred in nineteen eighty
or nine one and there was a horrific accident there
and I tell everybody it's virtually used every trauma skill
set that that was that we knew at the time.
And um Dr Bach heard about it, who was the
(04:01):
medical director for IndyCar at that time, and I M S.
And he basically said, would you want to be a
paramedic on our safety team? So I worked actually on
the track my first year on the safety team and
that's how, you know, it just flowed from there the
whole time. You know. Obviously we started traveling in ninety six.
(04:22):
Um I M. S. Was incredible at that time because
we had the brickyard, we had the five hundred, we
had Formula one. You know. It was it was getting
all these different flavors of racing, um you know, in
one you know venue. But then we started traveling in
ninety six and now we're taking it, you know, taking
it on the road, you know, and uh juggling family juggling,
(04:45):
racing juggling my career. Uh. I was just very fortunate
to have those opportunities. As the traveling began. Was that
the first time that a medical team actually traveled with
a series or a circuit for the entire season. No, actually, uh,
the CART Safety team Uh back when if you remember
(05:07):
Lan Bromley and uh Davy and that that group we're
traveling with CART that was with trammell And and alv
was with that group. You know, it was when when
there was somewhat of a split going on. So those
folks actually started in the early eighties, um And about
the same time. It's just in a parallel, different time
(05:29):
frame because we were working just Indie at that time
until we started traveling in ninety. Yeah, such a developed
skill set, um And, and the fans at home might
not It's it's not something I guess you would cross
your mind unless you were actually racing one of the cars,
or if you had a child or something, racing an
open wheel car something where they slide their legs down
(05:52):
into and and the seat is actually part of the
car and your body becomes part of that seat. I
mean it you're basically entombed inside of that car. Uh
to strap yourself in to deal with the g forces
and maintain control of the car and keep them as
safe as possible. But you know, the fans at home
until maybe you see something bad happen. You know, you
(06:12):
don't think of, oh my goodness, how are they going
to get that person out of that car? So it's
such a developed skill set that you guys have had
to learn and maintain and get better at all along
the way. That. UM, I'm sure that for mothers and
fathers and the racers across the land, we're really happy
to hear that you're going to travel with a series
because you need those experienced people to get that driver out. Yeah,
(06:36):
it's it's it's truly a different skill set as you mentioned.
But what we look for people who have mastered uh,
the firefighting, the driver extraction, the rescue work. UM. Have
experience to the point where they understand that they work
um in in in very tight time windows. Um. For
(06:59):
us to be successful, we have to be at our
best every time it happens. And so when we look
for people to do this, you know, and they come
to me, we look for people it's a it's an
ongoing process. UM. We look for those folks who have
mastered that skill set of being a firefighter, being a paramedic,
uh and understand that things happen in such a compressed
(07:22):
time period in racing that uh, they have to be
successful and quite frankly, people ask us why we do that,
and and it's probably the challenge, the challenge to operate
at this level the best you can be as a firefighter,
as a paramedic, as a rescue technician, and do it
in such a way, uh that it can make a difference, uh,
(07:45):
when a lot of times folks wouldn't survive these incidents. Absolutely,
I mean you go, quite frankly, from sitting in a
truck drinking a cup of coffee to wide open trying
to save somebody's life in a split sucker. Yes, yeah,
it's it's different obviously my career in the fire service.
We can't put a firehouse on every block, corner of
(08:06):
every block. Um So, nationally the standard is four to
seven minutes response time, you know, to get you know,
a fire fire truck to somebody's house or an ambulance
to somebody's house needed emergency. In Indy car racing with
the Mr Indy Car Safety Team, it's not minutes at seconds.
So we literally are sitting track side, which that doesn't happen.
(08:30):
We don't have fire trucks and animals. Is sitting on
the interstate or sitting in an intersection waiting for a crash,
we're sitting track side and we actually get to see
the incident happen, which is huge part of our success
because we see the mechanism of injury and understand um,
what potentially could happen and what potentially has happened to
(08:52):
that driver, and so it's very key. But we uh,
we do work very hard to make sure that they
have a term called the golden hour and trauma and
the golden hours from the time the injury happens to
the time they're in surgery. We don't save people. We
don't save people in you know, out you know, trauma
(09:13):
patients out on the street. We get them to surgery
and it's part of a system. And with that system,
we try to narrow our window so that we give
the surgeons and the hospitals and the tertiary care an
opportunity to save that life. Very very important stuff. It's
great stuff. Man. Again, we can't thank you enough. And
(09:35):
we have a lot more to cover here with you.
Pick that brain of yours. I know you've seen a lot,
You've been in a lot of different situations. So we're
gonna take a quick break here and we'll be right
back on the other side with more very You said
a little foggy, right, Michael, A lot foggy, A lot foggy,
A lot foggy. We'll be back in a minute. This
(10:01):
segment of The Skinny is brought to you by Dream Giveaway.
Dream Giveaway has been giving away high end American muscle
cars to raise money for charity since two thousand seven.
Dream Giveaway is known for giving away classic and new
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Welcome back to the Skinny. Can't stout here trying to
wake up, apparently stumbling with all the words. Michael's going
to carry the show from here on out. I'm just
gonna go finish my coffee, see you later. Here we go, folks.
(10:44):
Tim Boffman is our guest, and Tim has seen and
done so much with the nt T in D Car series,
and we touched upon in the first segment the reaction
time once an incident happens when you see a yellow
I've always wondered. We have three track safety trucks that
that man several people in each when the time of
(11:05):
caution comes out, how quickly do you assess what's going
on as you approach an incident? And what are the
steps that you take each and every time? And we
must remember things have changed now with the aeroscreen, so
I'm I'm sure that process has changed ever so slightly.
But i'm when you're inside, are you always ready? I like,
(11:26):
at any second something could happen or is it casual?
But as soon as a caution comes out, maybe like
at a firehouse, you hear the alarm go off and
everybody jumps into action. Well, uh, first of all, we
have sixteen team members go to every race cover those
three trucks that you mentioned, and there is different protocols
based on road course, the street courses, and ovals. So
(11:47):
the response is different. Um on ovals, which where we
start cutting our teeth in. You know, it's it's very
clear cut what that response is. A triple yellow yellow
yellow yellow is out. Um, we're there, we may not
see it. You remember that an indie car going on
a superspeedway is traveling about a football field a second,
(12:11):
and a crash shown for an indie car is about
a thousand feet at two mile hour. So sometimes that
crash happens before they ever get to us, and then
they end up right in front of us, or they
slide by us, or it happens right in front of us,
and we got to follow him a thousand feet to
where they come to rest. Our. First truck goes to
(12:32):
the the car that was involved, the second truck goes
to the point of impact. The third truck then fills
the void in between, and we basically work from the
two end points and take care of the incident. But
that first truck is key, obviously, um with that driver
that as we roll out we see the incident go down.
(12:54):
Things that we look at as we visualize what's going on,
you know, it is the is the driver head up?
Are they awake? Are they trying to do something purposeful?
Because that's part of that assessment of whether and that's
changed that with the aeroscreen because we really can't see
the driver's head like we used to be able to,
which is a great thing, by the way. The so
(13:18):
what we see is is the driver awake or appear
to be moving, is the car on fire? Is the
car upright? Because all those things change our response. And
if we have multiple cars, we're pulling out and I'm
driving safety too, I'm looking to say, Okay, he's moving,
he's moving, they're fine. I keep driving until I find
(13:43):
something that that's worthy of me making that initial stop.
If there are multiple cars, those trucks will then break
protocol and we'll start splitting up and then they'll go
to the other drivers. So we always try to get
a paramedic or one of our team members with every driver.
They're they're great drivers, wonderful drivers. Sometimes they're bad pedestrians,
(14:08):
so we want to make sure we're with them even
when they get out of the car. Uh so they
don't walk out in front of traffic, walk out in
front of another response vehicle or something out on the racetrack.
So we always try to get somebody there there immediately
to do that initial assessment. Sometimes it's immediate and you know,
our our trucks are following the crash people are, they're
right on top of it, the cars sliding to us. Basically,
(14:29):
it's like a catcher with a catcher's mit saying you know,
put it here, we're here right here. Other times there's
a gap or avoid and you've asked me about that
offline before, and people say, where's the safety team where
they're so used to seeing us, they're that quick. There
are times when, uh, there's a bigger gap between where
(14:50):
our trucks are and where the incident happened. So there
is a strategy of where our trucks are parked. You know,
we try to put them using historical information, using the
experts out there that Tony Cotman's and those folks to say, hey,
this is a high speed corner. We we've built a
track like this. You know, this is probably a place
(15:11):
where we want to have a safety truck in this runoff.
If we have a big hit here, you know, the
opportunity to save a life. There. Sometimes odd things happen
on race tracks where there's big hits where they weren't expected.
You know, we look at the Roman rogen crash in
Formula one that was a straightaway, two cars got together
and ninety degrees into the wall. It was a gap
(15:34):
between response positions. Those things do happen. I was thinking
about the incident that happened in race wanted Detroit this
year where Felix Rosenquist car and they had a failure
with the throttle and he went full throttle into a
corner where we don't normally expect crashes with the aero
screen now in place, and and that certainly did its job,
(15:55):
How did you assess that when he's buried a car
length to the tire barrier. So good example of a
place where it's a technical part of the race course
normally not high impacts, but yet something happened, a mechanical
failure caused that big impact. So he goes into allowed
(16:15):
higher speed. It wasn't a position where we had a
safety truck right on top of it, because it wasn't
that technical area versus a high speed impact point or
projected high speed input. So we were there. Everything worked,
the track designed, with the tires the way, even with
the concrete walls that actually in fence that were actually destroyed.
(16:38):
They did their job. But more importantly, his car submarine
up into those tires, hit the fence, tires went over
the top of his head, were on top of it.
The car actually end up resting about a forty five
degree nose word up um and yeah, it was it
was definitely a challenge, and it was the first driver
(16:58):
that we extracted uh in a real incident with the aeroscreen,
and we thought that it went extremely well. With the
fact that we we had trained probably hundreds and hundreds
of drills, UM, knowing that the aeroscreen was gonna make
a challenge. It's like kind of like working in a hole.
You have to reach down everything is below ground, and
(17:21):
so we we had to design equipment differently. The backboard
we put on the driver has lift straps so that
we can use our body mechanics better. UM. It secures
the driver more like a bucket, UH, so that when
you do lift them up, you're not going to cause
further injury. UM. And the fact that all the we
(17:41):
used to have four or five sets of hands down
in the cockpit, somebody taking a string, well, somebody doing
the straps, um taking the heads around off. You can
only give about two sets of hands in that in
that position now, so all of our protocols as far
as driver extraction changed, UM with that incident. Unfortunately, you know,
(18:02):
Felix was not injured seriously. UM. We found out that
all of our practice and all of our preparation UM,
it was successful and the fact that we know that
we can do that with with the aeroscreen in play,
and there was there's a lot of work that went
into that. And you know, I have to thank Jay Fry.
Initially when they came up with doing ero screen in
(18:25):
Red Bull, he tagged me out and said, we need
you to sit in on these meetings. You know, from
the design point, they asked me, what do we need.
I brought them a backboard what we normally use. We
measured the cockpit twenty one and a half inches. We
made sure that that opening state twenty one and a
half inches, because that's what we need to get a
driver straight up and out without turning their head or
(18:48):
their neck or their back and injuring them potentially injuring
them further. So, um, all that went into play. They
designed the thing and as soon as we had prototypes,
we were taking it out to Hamot and Glenn Bernie.
We were cutting it. We were finding out how strong
it was, finding out what the how was affixed to
the car, uh how the plexiglass of the polyglass was
(19:11):
was affixed to the car, and what we needed to
do to remove it if we had to. Uh So
there's a lot of drill, a lot of preparation that
went into play, and those all went on top of
our normal protocols. So uh, we we feel it worked
out real well. And and D Laura and IndyCar and
and Canasty was involved in this too. They got us
(19:32):
a tub two thousand and twelve tub that was damaged
beyond repair. Uh. They actually put an actual aeroscreen on it,
frame poly the whole nine yards and we drill, drill, drill.
It goes with this to every race. And it's not
something that we did one time and just pushed it
off the side. We literally do it almost every race weekend,
(19:54):
and we do it in January, and we do our
team training. We'll do it times. We'll take a quick
break here. We have Tim Boffman in the studio here,
the senior director of Track Safety and Medical, giving us
some great insight on the preparation that he and his
team goes through to make sure our drivers out there
in Indy Car are safe. We have plenty more to come.
Stay with us. We'll be right back. This segment of
(20:16):
the skinny has been brought to you by General Tire.
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of the Skinny is brought to you by Rhino Classifies.
Tired of all those ads and random stuff that shows
up when you're looking to buy or sell your car parts,
Rhino Classifies was created just for you. Welcome to a
(21:01):
streamlined buying and selling that created by racers for racers
and race vans, modified cars, classic cars, race cars, that
special big block. You need the trailer to move your
baby around the country in we got you at Rhino
dot Co. Welcome back to the Skinny. We have a
great guest on here. This is Tim Boffman, Senior Director
(21:23):
of Track Safety and Medical, giving us some insights on
what the A m R Team goes through whenever an
incident happens on the track, how they prepare and then
how they deal with that incident. Some some great insights,
some great stories here to help everybody understand everything that
you guys go through. Um, we're gonna pick out a
couple of incidents is here. I'm gonna pick the James
(21:47):
Henchcliff one. Uh, for a couple of reasons. One, he
was on the show and we had an opportunity to
talk to him about that. But his unique situation of
actually being impaled, so he was pinned inside of the
car are And of course that was before aeroscreen, which
would have made it who knows how much more difficult.
But when you look at a situation like that, uh,
(22:10):
you constantly think, I'm thinking, well, can they cut the
car apart? But you really can't cut the car apart.
I mean there's a person inside of it. And of
course those tubs are so incredibly strong. What was the
scenario there with with James, So James absolutely know the
story obviously. Um, the the suspension part which kind of
(22:31):
acted like a spear when the car went in at
the correct angle into the safer barrier, actually penetrated all
the way through the side tub and then went into
his body and then actually came out and went into
the tub again, so he was really he was skewered
basically on on that part. James was initially awake, um
(22:51):
talking um noticed that his color was not so good,
but sometimes color is not good just because they just
had a hundred tings impact or sevent e g impact
and the body catching up. As they went to take
him out of the car, he wouldn't come out, and
it was, uh, what's going on here? So you guys
didn't know initially, no, no, so nothing was working that
(23:15):
normally worked. We you know, we we take the foot
box off to the shock cover to look at the feet,
make sure there's nothing in there, the petals, the feet
aren't stuck in the petals, took the head surround off.
They were talking to James assassin em and then as
they went to take him out of the car, m
he just wouldn't come out. Well then there then the
(23:36):
now we got to find out actually put hands down
around you know, his his hips, his legs, find out
what what's going on here? Because the way that the
piece went in, it went in and then was flushed
with the tub, so you couldn't see it from the outside.
So um, they went down and came up and obviously
found you know that he was bleeding. Um, and then
(23:58):
they realized, what we've got something now going on differently here.
So a very small piece of this suspension and it
literally turned into a spear. The the him on the
end broke off. It actually become a point and that's
what penetrated all the way through. Well, it's stuck in
the other side of the car. Well, taking the spreader
(24:19):
from the Homutra spreader which spreads out to thirty two
and a half inches, they spread that just enough to
release that and heard a pop and release that point
that was stuck on the other side of the car.
All of our training and training still today is that
when you have somebody impaled or on an object, you
don't remove it simply because it's there and it may
(24:42):
be up against a blood vessel and stopping it from
bleeding more and you could do more damage by removing it.
So in our training trauma training today, you still remove
you take the object with them to the to the hospital. Well,
we couldn't load up a whole indycarr, so we had
to bray break our training and they basically when I
(25:03):
heard that pop and felt a release, and we've got
to pull him off of here. He's going to you know,
bleed out in this car. Um, so that pop occurred,
guys are ready, they put him, put him in you know,
got him out of there, basically slid him off of
off the suspension piece of the impalement. And um literally
(25:26):
from from this is James account of it, because he didn't.
It was incredible that how much he wanted to talk
to every person that took care of him ever and
he wanted to know what happened because obviously at a
certain point he he didn't know what was being done,
but his there's decisions that were made two take him
(25:47):
directly to the trauma center Methodist um there instead of
stopping at the infield care center. Uh, there were decisions
on we got to slide him off of this because
if we had a messed around trying to cut it,
trying to pull it loose, trying to get it loose,
and somewhere we're talking seconds here and James will will
tell you this is that Um. He was lead. He
(26:12):
was in a resuscitation mode from the time when the
elevators opened in the operating room at um to the
point where he had lost all of his blood. And
if they'd have gone fifteen twenty seconds another minute, if
we had taken two more minutes, we have a different outcome.
And so James, um, you know he did. You know,
(26:36):
Mike Yates was head of the team at that time.
Mike was there and Matt Stewart, who's currently on the team,
took care of him. Um. They did some very incredible
things in the back of that amulance that quite frankly,
people talk about today and say, why did you get
how did you got what? How did you think of this?
(26:56):
And uh, And it was all trying to stop the bleeding.
Here the stop the bleed and tourniquets are coming back
in the form of trying to save people's lives. Police
officers are carrying tourniquets, We use those basic things, but
a big tourniquet and stopping the bleed by holding pressure
to give him a few more seconds to get him
(27:19):
to that operating room where he could be resuscitated and survived.
We remember the anniversary obviously of nine eleven. We lost
Dan Weldon ten years ago, so that anniversary came up
as well, and I think about that day and what
had happened, and how horrific and how quickly everything went wrong.
(27:41):
Describe if you would, your time with being in New
York City the day after nine eleven and then being
on the scene with Dan's incidents. Well, actually, at the
at Dan's incident, I was up and I was actually
a fire control so I was over seeing the response,
and so I had trucks out there. And UM, when
(28:04):
I look at the parallel between the two things, it
was something that your mind just doesn't um grasped all
the details. Um and and and stay with you. And
a few few weeks ago when they did the tenure
on Dan, you know, it was we were looking and
I was like, I remember that now. I remember that now,
and same way of nine eleven. You know, we there
(28:28):
were certain aspects until they started showing it that our
our brains and then maybe this is a thing that
God blessed us with, you know, and the fact that
our brains don't remember those things on purpose, you know,
And and it helps us cope and and move forward.
But the Dan Weldon crashed, there were seven cars burning,
there was a driver significantly injured, seventeen cars involved. UM,
(28:53):
and it literally looked like a large commercial jetliner crash
on a racetrack. That's debris everywhere, fires, people up and walking,
other people seriously injured. So but it happened right in
front of us, you know. And then in New York,
if you look at it, you're sitting there thinking what
(29:16):
we had, these two storied towers down and there's nothing left.
And I remember getting off the bus fifteen hours after
the towers came down and walked into a dust pile
and you couldn't see anything. There was, you know, fire,
there's still smoke coming out of the piles, and it
was all very surreal, It's like, and there was a comparison,
(29:39):
you know, when you look at those things and how
we deal with them. And and I will tell you
that all first responders probably some time in their career
have dealt with, you know, something very traumatic. But quite frankly,
that's what we've trained for, that's what we it's what
we were built for. That's why we were designed to
(29:59):
go and do those types of things. Um, after thirty
five forty years of doing it, you don't realize when
you're that twenty year old kids saying hey, sign me up.
Put me in coach, I'm ready to go, and I'm
ready to go. Go go that the impact that it
has and how how we deal without those types of things.
But for the most part, you know, I can be
(30:20):
any more proud of how our team response, Um, how
proud I am to be a member of that team,
and the whole response to nine eleven, the whole response
what we do is it's uh, you know it. We
look at those as opportunities for us to excel as professionals,
and if we excel, then people live. We have a
(30:41):
better outcome. Incredible efforts, incredible stories, uh, and incredible situations.
It's wow. It's just fascinating to listen to what you
guys do, how you prepare. I can't thank you enough
fan for for all the effort and in an endless task.
It's it's also very good to hear. It was actually
(31:02):
going to be one of one of my questions, but
you answered it inadvertently whenever you started talking about the
design of the Aero screen. The fact that they do
include you guys and some of that design and get
your input about what it's going to change from your
end in terms of safety. Certainly, the whole premises to
keep the driver safer, but you know, after an incident,
what's it going to do to make it more difficult
(31:24):
to extract them. I even wonder if there's further development
that could be taken, uh, in terms of maybe some
way a quick removal of that aero screen to help
you guys if and in fact, I mean given a
James Henchcliffe situation where in a matter of seconds you
could pop that off and get yourself some more working room,
but certainly that affects the whole rest of the car
(31:46):
well first and foremost. Um, as a first responder out
on the street, we get very little information about, you know,
cars that are built in factories, you know, by the
big motor companies. We kind of learned to deal with
this is what you see, this is what you you know.
How do we work through it systematically? Um, knowing the materials,
(32:09):
knowing the design and just applying that. But yeah, I'm
sure there's some people that are a lot smarter and
the engineering side of things that are looking at ways
of improving the aeroscreen, whether it's on the new tub
going forward. You're gonna remember it was retro fitted onto
the two thousand and twelve tubs. So there were some
a lot of restrictions that went on to make that work.
(32:30):
And um, you know, and and and it's pretty phenomenal
how they did it. But imagine given a blank sheet
of paper and designed a new car incorporate those types
of things. It's pretty exciting. And that's probably you know,
if you want to frame that. In the thirty five
forty years I've been doing this, we had concrete walls
(32:51):
and went to safer barriers. We've we've had so many
safety We've had the Hans device. Uh, we have so
many safety measures that have have have evolved. And and
that's the cool part about racing is that it's always evolving.
It's always pushing. Even though there's this competition everybody sees
on TV and says they're racing. Man, the engineer folks
(33:12):
working behind the scenes, Uh, the decision makers to to
make things safer. Um, you know, And I have to
mention we are our primary sponsoring you mentioned is a MR.
And MR has been a great partner for us. And
the fact that anything we've needed, they've said, how can
we help you, you know, whether it's a certain type
(33:34):
of device or scope that we can put down to
get an airway on a on a driver that we
have problems accessing a monitor to the monitor, their their
oxygen levels, their CEO two levels, all those things. Because
that driver now is in this that may be in
there a little longer than what they were a few
years ago. Now we have these devices, you know, through
(33:55):
our sponsor and through their support, that that helps us
do that. And and I think it's a system and
we're we're we're a component of it. But I think
track design, car design, our team, um, the medical care
that's set up prior to having a helicopter, you know,
when it we're distanced from out. It's all part of
(34:16):
a network or series of things that lead to our success.
So there are a lot more people behind the scenes
than just our sixteen people in our our our two
doctors and four nurses, I mean. And it's the way
that we're embraced by the racing community and supported and
basically a lot of people say, we would like to
(34:38):
have a team like yours. And you know, some of
my my team members worked recently with the SRX you
know series that came up. We all had some backgrounds,
some NASCAR stuff. Uh, one of my team members is
now the director of safety for IMS. So a lot
of our cross training and things that are going on
back and forth are going to make us better. I
(35:00):
see that sprint car sitting there in front of you
right now, and I think the biggest area where we
can improve in racing is small tracks around the country.
You know, we've lost a lot of friends and a
lot of drivers, and and we've had first responders hurt.
And I think if, if, if we could work to
improve that safety at those levels, Uh, we're going to
(35:22):
save more lives and and hopefully have better outcomes and
and keep racing fun. Once again, Tim Boutin, whether Senior
Director of Track Safety and Medical, some great insights and uh,
I can't thank these guys enough. You go out to
a race track, it doesn't matter if you're a fan,
or if you're a racer or a crew member, whatever,
(35:43):
whatever it may be, these guys are always there. You'll
bump into one sooner or later. Take a moment just
say thanks, because without them we would have lost a
lot of our friends. Tim, thank you very much for
spending the time with us this morning. Man, great great show.
It was my pleasure. Thank you. Thanks, but we'll you
next time. Thanks for being with us here on the Skinny.
(36:03):
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(36:26):
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