Dirt Track at Charlotte
Banged-up Moyer thinks slowdown wouldn't hurt
By Joshua Joiner
DirtonDirt.com staff writer
Billy Moyer is helped to the ambulance after his Nov. 1 wreck at Charlotte. (dt52photos.com)
Billy Moyer is nearly certain that the Friday night wreck that prematurely ended his World Finals weekend at The Dirt Track at Charlotte was the hardest hit he’s ever taken. He can’t say that for sure, however, because he doesn’t remember it.
But based on the way he felt the day after the wreck, which sent him to the hospital with a mild concussion and multiple bumps and bruises, the Hall-of-Fame driver from Batesville, Ark., was confident it was indeed the hardest wreck of his career.
“I don’t remember anything. But I’m OK now,” Moyer said Saturday as he watched the final night of the World Finals from the grandstands. “I’m just sore everywhere. I’ve never took a hit like that before, I don’t think. My back and knees and wrist and hand, all of it hurts. I’m pretty beat up.”
The wreck was a terrible end to what began as a promising weekend at Charlotte when Moyer, making his World Finals debut in returning to Charlotte for the first time since 2010, topped both rounds of Thursday’s World of Outlaws Late Model Series qualifying.
Things were still headed in the right direction when Moyer took the lead on the start of Friday’s first heat race. But a mistake entering turn three on the opening lap allowed Josh Richards to pull ahead for the lead. Another slide high in turn one on the next lap allowed Jimmy Owens to pull under Moyer, and contact between the two drivers sent Moyer’s car driver’s side first into the turn-two wall.
The hard hit left Moyer in a daze. He needed help from multiple track safety officials to get out of his heavily damaged race car and into the waiting ambulance. A short while later he was driven by car to a local hospital. Diagnosed with a mild concussion, Moyer returned to the track later Friday night, but sat out the remainder of the weekend.
“I just remember going into turn three there when I was still in the lead,” Moyer recalled of the wreck, which sent him to the hospital for just the second time during his more than 30 years of Late Model racing. “I feel like I overshot the corner a little bit and let Josh get under me off of four there. ... If I could’ve just slowed my butt down and stayed on the bottom better, I guess none of this crap would’ve happened.
“I’m not upset at Jimmy; it’s just a racing thing. I’m sure he didn’t do nothing on purpose. A lot of times, you’ve got to hit the brake a little bit even though we all don’t want to. I don’t know if that was the case or not, but I know none of us are out there trying to hurt one another. Nobody wants to see anyone getting hurt doing this.”
While Moyer escaped the incident without serious injury, it continues a trend of injuries among high-profile drivers this season as Moyer joins a long list of drivers to make hospital visits following wrecks this season.
Don O’Neal missed two weeks of racing after an Aug. 22 rollover wreck that left him with neck and back injuries. Austin Hubbard also missed multiple weeks when he suffered a concussion and whiplash after being briefly knocked unconscious in an Aug. 17 wreck. And Josh McGuire is still recovering from an Oct. 26 accident that left him hospitalized for nearly a week with a serious neck injury.
Unfortunately, those are just a small sample of the list of drivers that have been injured serious enough this season to be sent to the hospital. The troubling trend already caught Moyer’s attention before his own trip to the hospital Friday night, but now, he’s calling for a review of the sport’s safety standards.
For Moyer, increased safety would begin at the top of the sport with officials from national tours and national sanctioning bodies agreeing on major rule changes that would slow cars down. In theory, tracks and regional series across the country would follow suit.
“There’s a lot of things that could be done from all sides if we could get everyone on the same page,” Moyer said. “Just like NASCAR’s done, and the Indy cars, you’ve got to have rules to slow us down. I don’t know if maybe it’s a harder tire rule, some different shock and spring packages that are mandatory or something. I just think we need to slow these cars down, and then the safety factor should take care of itself.
“I like going fast; every driver does. That’s cool, that’s fun, that’s what gets your adrenaline pumping. But when the wrong thing happens like it did to me, we need to know we’re going to be OK.”
Moyer would also like to see track owners and promoters take steps to improve safety. While he knows upgrades like safer walls that are used at NASCAR tracks are unlikely in most cases, he’d like to see tracks taking at least some small measures to address the issue.
“If that had been a safer-barrier wall, I probably wouldn’t have gone to the hospital. But how many tracks will spend the money for that?” Moyer said. “But even then, there’s other things. They have a safety crew here and they do at Knoxville and stuff, but there’s so many places, you’re lucky if they have a fire extinguisher.”
Of course, the issue of safety isn’t only the responsibility of track and series officials. Moyer, who himself does not use a containment seat and has been slow to adopt the use of a head and neck restraint device, knows that many drivers can do more to insure their own safety.
“All of us here in the pits go in there and we’re so naïve and ignorant that our lives are at stake here,” Moyer said. “I’m hard-headed about it, I know. I use a good seat, but I don’t have all that restraint around my head.
“I came out to Charlotte early in the week, and I’ve been talking to seat companies because I know I need to get something better. It’s ironic that (the wreck) happened. I told (son) Billy (Moyer Jr.) when I left, because he gets on me about it. He’s got the safety stuff in his car, but I’m old school like a lot of these guys that don’t have all that stuff. I just don’t like it, but I know I need to get used to it for my own good.”
While enough to convince him of the need for increased safety measures, the wreck and injury won’t deter Moyer from racing. He had certainly hoped to end his 2013 season on better terms, but he’s still looking forward to the 2014 season.
“It’s in my blood, and this didn’t screw me up to where I’m quitting,” said Moyer, who this season became the inaugural champion on the National Dirt Racing League but failed to match his usual high standards in number of victories. “I’m ready to come out in ’14 and get this crazy ’13 year behind me.”
