TOPIC:

www.onedirt.com/news/12-year-old-tyler-m...-sustained-in-crash/

my heart goes out to family it also brings up ?s agion of how old kids need be to race

I dont think its a question of how old they need to be to race.Its the question of quality of safety.Track promoters and parents should do more inspection of safety cages and belts better than they do,instead of let anyone with a halfass rollcage and admission race.Anyway it is very sad news this happened.Godspeed young man.

this is why my dad has a hans device for me, racing is a very dangerous sport, safety over everything else..

this is saddening there needs to be rules about how young you need to be to drive a stock car who in there right mind will let a 12 year old kid drive a full size stock car i was just starting to get into racing my first mini sprint at 16 and then i had to feelout alot of paper work but 12 is to young for a full sized car and to think there was three other kids out there on the track with him that could have been collected in the wreck when he slammed into the wall... come on parents how much reaction time could a 12 year old have damn if the kids want to race buy them a gocart and take them to a local cart track and not come up with the dumb idea of lets put our kid into a 3000 pound stock car that can run speeds way faster then the kid can handle and to top off the factor lets not get the kid anything that resembles a hans device i never stepped into a car without one the only people to blame here are the kids parents but my heart goes out to his family for there loss of a son

I dont think age should be the issue...i started racing when i was 12 in the stock four division and there was 30 other cars on the tracks with me but,we did not run a junky ass roll cage and the seat was positioned correctly,we kept brand new belts and they where in the correct positon,i had a new helmet every year and routine maintenance was done every week.Some people think that u can have a rollcage and mount a racing seat anywhere in the car and just bolt the seatbelts onto the floorboard and go race and expect to be safe.Racing is a serious sport and if people neglect to go through proper safety measures stuff like this happens.Like i said before i dont think age is the issue i believe the parents are more negligent for not giving the boy the proper equipment to race with and the track for not making sure that every driver whether they are 12 or 100 have proper safety equipment.

Pretty sure I read somewhere that the top speed of the cars were 40-45 mile per hour. That's slower than the go karts with restrictor plates that race and you're inside a full bodied car which should be safer than sitting with no seat belt or anything in an open go kart. Sounds like a freak accident and for it to kill him at such low speeds there had to be something malfunction or he didn't have much safety equipment like F1yer said

i agree with u shock and f1 think lack of proper safty check before race and lack of safty in car caused this kids at elkins race mini wedges they look like mini lm go carts but inside roll cage they have a safty harnes iv seen kids flip 1 10 times 1 dent on roll cage was all car had driver walked away but they let kids 6 years and older race in carts that iv clocked at 60-70 mph thats pretty crazy if u ask me but then agion take look at this ur driving down road at 40-45 in reg auto and crash only thing saving ur as maybe is a seat belt i work for a vol fire dept iv seen both side of safty belts that save and then times they kill as for tracks that let kids race lets make a full safty inspection of there cars before they get on track and like f1 said every year u need get new safty gear i know 1 lm drivers here says he changes his after 4 months becuse buy then there getting stressed and tired always saty up safty may safe life my heart goes out to family of this yung lad but may he give god and all other racers who have passed a good race in heaven

i started racing when i was 12. i started in the division i race now. which is the fwd four cylinder division we call hornets. the cage must be 4 point full cage. with a minimum of 3 bars welded on the driver side door. the seat must be bolted to the cage and floor. and the seatbelts are bolted to the floor and the cage. must be a 5 point belt. racing seat, and belts are mandatory. i dont really replace the helmet. but the belts get replaced every 2 years. safety inspections are random. so people cant just nigger rig it together to look safe while they inspect your equipment. my speedometer reads 60-65 mph going around the track. so we are at speeds. an we flip and wreck just like every driver does ive wrecked less then most of the adults do. accidents happen exspecially when your going around the track at highspeeds. with 20+ cars in a little track smaller then 1/4th mile. so age doesnt matter. but i do feel sorry for the parents. and you cant just put the accident on the parents. it has alot to do with the track officials for the simple fact they didnt check his equipment correctly.

Ok just to comment, Not rudely or anything I was aware of this the night it had happened, I think we were either at NFS or MCS racing the Mini, The safety on these car that Ty was racing were not really "Safe" just because your only going 40 MPH does not mean you dont need full cages or nothing, Plus the fact of no safety harness (HANS) was not being using was dangerous, I still use mine no matter what im in not on the road vehicale but racing, The class was designed to learn the mechanics of racing, But the mechanics of racing are SAFETY I will miss Ty though I didnt know him well I knew him through others. He was a nice cheerfull kid. Thatll be missed, Age does not matter its the track safety that does.
#17 Race in Peace