Written by:
David Phillips
Senior writer, RACER Magazine http://www.racer.com/speedtv
Senior writer, RACER Magazine http://www.racer.com/speedtv
04/22/2008 - 11:26 AM
Pittsburgh, Pa.
Quick to respond, precise in execution of its operations, Champ Car's safety team set the standard for the industry. (LAT photo) ยป More Photos
Alex Zanardi. Cristiano da Matta. Phil Krueger. They owe their lives to the men and women of what was variously known as the Horton/CART/Champ Car/Holmatro Safety Team.
Derek Daly. Rick Mears. Mark Blundell. Scott Goodyear. Bryan Herta. Christian and Emerson Fittipaldi. Ty Manseau. Their potentially devastating injuries were ameliorated by the initial responders of the Horton/CART/Champ Car/Holmatro Safety Team.
The list of race drivers who found the Horton/CART/Champ Car/Holmatro Safety Team at their side almost before their crashed racecars ground to a halt? Virtually endless.
Wanna talk about quick response? Go to You Tube, enter “Katherine Legge Road America.”
As was once well known, the genesis of the Horton/CART/Champ Car/Holmatro Safety Team dates to the 1981 Michigan 500 when Carl Horton, owner of America’s leading ambulance and emergency vehicle manufacturing company, saw the pits nearly engulfed in an inferno resulting from Herm Johnson’s botched
“What I saw on TV that day started me thinking about what I could do to help,” said Horton. “I had been sponsoring racecars and motorcycles for some time, but I decided to put that money to better use.”
That “better” use featured a team of specially trained medical and rescue personnel and state of the art vehicles at all CART events, including one unit designed especially for the limited confines of pit lane and mobile trauma care center. Simply put, “The Horton Safety Team” was a quantum leap over anything previously seen in motorsports. Under the direction of Steve Edwards and, later, Lon Bromley (and in collaboration with CART/Champ Car medical directors Dr. Steve Olvey and Chris Pinderski) the safety team became the gold standard for motorsports rescue and medical care. It’s no exaggeration to say that it was the catalyst for dramatic upgrades in on-track rescue and medical operations around the world, up to and including Formula 1.
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