Posted: March-25-2014 at 10:00am | IP Logged	Tweet

In addition to memorial ribbons and a campaign to have a memorial race for 15 year old Niokoa Johnson, the young lady who was killed in a race car Saturday evening near Ocala, Florida ... How about a push for mandatory head and neck restraints, five or six point safety harnesses, and automatic fire bottles in every class of racing to try to avoid the next tragedy?  Just a thought.

We hear cost as an excuse. Bottom line ... if a racer (or racer's parents) cannot afford safety, they cannot afford to be racing. We hear "things like this happen in racing" ... well, THAT is all the more reason to stress safety first. Racing is dangerous in any division at any track. Bad things can happen. If proper safety measures are not taken, tragic things can, and will, happen. It is impossible to imagine what this young girl's family and friends are going through after this. They were at a race track having fun watching their daughter, their sister, their classmate getting ready to compete in her first race. They saw her run a lap and a half of hot laps, never getting up to race speed ... and they saw her severely injured in a head on crash with the wall, (and then removed from life support the following day) ... never to become an adult ... never to finish high school or go to college or have a family or a career of her own. The photo above was taken just minutes before this girl's life ended. Every racer, every track owner, every promoter and every official should let that thought and that image sink in for just a minute.

Memorial ribbons and decals and a race named in her honor will be nice tributes. Mandatory safety rules will be a much better tribute.