In July, Greg Hodnett and his wife, Sherry, were eating dinner at their favorite Italian restaurant when the conversation shifted to an uncomfortable topic – death at the racetrack.

Jason Johnson, a family friend and fellow sprint car star, had been killed weeks earlier at a Wisconsin speedway.

Sherry asked Greg, 49, if he ever worried about dying in a crash.

“I dunno," he replied casually. “You just always think, ‘That will never happen to me.’”

Two months later, tragically, it did.

On Sept. 20, Hodnett reportedly lost control of his car and crashed at BAPS Motor Speedway in York County. He died on impact, the county coroner said.

The deaths of Johnson and Hodnett, who had 30 World of Outlaws wins between them, have cast a spotlight on one of the riskiest forms of racing.

Short-track drivers square off on half- and 3/8th-mile ovals, often dirt tracks, in vehicles that can hit 160 mph. The sport is unregulated in every state except New Jersey, one safety expert told PennLive.

According to a recent New York Times report, two-thirds of all racing deaths occur on short tracks. An analysis by the Charlotte Observer found at least 171 drivers died between 1989 and 2014.

In central Pennsylvania, at least four short-track drivers have been killed – including two at BAPS – since 2013.

By comparison, a driver hasn’t died in a NASCAR race since 2001, when Dale Earnhardt wrecked on the final lap of the Daytona 500.

Fred Rahmer, a former Reading driver with more than 400 sprint car wins, said death statistics can be misleading.

Hundreds of short-track races occur each weekend, compared to just 41 a year in NASCAR’s top division – the Monster Energy series.

Central Pennsylvania’s tracks, Rahmer said, are particularly safe.

"As far as I can tell, we have one of the best areas in the country to race,” he said.

Short-track promoters and drivers interviewed by PennLive said their sport has made major safety improvements in recent decades – from personal equipment, to track infrastructure, to car manufacturers.

Kolten Gouse, the general manager of BAPS, said his track is undergoing a “six-figure" offseason overhaul.

Several drivers, however, said many speedways have thin profit margins and can’t afford major upgrades. Some added they accept the sport is inherently dangerous. Any fatality is tragic, they said, but in some cases unavoidable.

Several safety experts and drivers disagreed.

Randy LaJoie, a former NASCAR driver, who now sells safety equipment, said short-track racing has continued to lag behind the safety advances in other forms of racing.

While safety upgrades can be expensive, he and other experts said, there were smaller, practical changes that can be made.

LaJoie said short-track racing would likely always be the most dangerous form of motorsports due to the power of the vehicles. But, he added, making safety improvements could save lives.

“It’s like playing Russian roulette,” he said. “But with every safety measure, you’re taking bullets out of the chamber.”

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Greg Hodnett was always an advocate for safety.

There were few precautions he didn’t take, Sherry Hodnett said. He always wore fireproof clothing and a head-and-neck device. He used arm restraints and a special cushion to protect his knees.

At one point, he was even invited to write an article about safety.

"He tried to do everything he could do,” Sherry said.

But even those measures couldn’t save Greg’s life.

As he was coming into Turn 1 at BAPS, Sherry said something likely broke on Greg’s car, and it suddenly veered right.

His vehicle slammed into a blunt corner of an open area in the retaining wall, and Greg died instantly, the York County coroner said.

Sherry said she didn’t know how fast Greg’s car was traveling but the impact “broke his neck, tore his aorta and fractured his skull.”

“There’s no one who’s going to be able to survive that,” she said.

For some drivers, the crash was improbable.

Rahmer wasn’t at BAPS that night but said the opening Hodnett entered was about the size of a parking space.

Rahmer said he was surprised Hodnett’s car found its way into the opening under racing conditions. “It’s hard to do even at slow speed,” he said.

Hodnett’s crash wasn’t the first at that particular opening. Two other sprint car drivers told PennLive they lost control of their vehicles and wrecked in the same area.

Blane Heimbach of Selinsgrove said he crashed into the opening around 2015.

Heimbach said he tore his right rear tire while making the turn. His car, like Hodnett’s, veered right and smacked the opening’s guard rail.

Heimbach said the crash destroyed the front of his car, but he was largely unscathed because of the angle of impact.

In 2016, Logan Wagner of Harrisonville said a part broke on his vehicle coming into the turn and he lost control. Wagner estimated he was traveling 120 to 130 mph.

Unlike Hodnett and Heimbach, Wagner said his momentum carried him over the guard rail, and he flipped at least four times.

Wagner said he had scratches and bruises but otherwise escaped major injury. “I’m just very fortunate to still be alive,” he said.

Wagner said he didn’t blame BAPS Motor Speedway for the crash.

The bigger problem, he said, is too many tracks still have openings, and all openings should have padded gates.

“You can’t say, ‘Shame on you, BAPS Motor Speedway, for having that opening,’” Wagner said, “when there are a number of racetracks that have openings.”

Gouse, the BAPS general manager, told PennLive there are plans in place to install a gate across the Turn 1 entrance to the pit area before the start of the 2019 season.

The track also placed plastic barrels of water in the opening to absorb impact for its season-ending race in October.

For its season-ending race in October, BAPS Motor Speedway placed water barrels at the opening where Greg Hodnett crashed. The track's general manger told PennLive he expects his facility to have a gate at the opening for the first race of 2019. Mark Pynes | mpynes@pennlive.comMark Pynes

One former driver, Donnie Krietz of Sinking Spring, told PennLive the managers of BAPS also called him to ask for advice on how they could make the track safer.

A safety expert based in Florida said Hodnett’s crash into to the opening should serve as a wake-up call.

Stephen Olvey, an associate professor in the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Miami, said other forms of racing, like NASCAR, had recognized the danger of pit openings and introduced the padded gates that Wagner mentioned. The gates were closed during racing, Olvey said.

But Olvey suspected many short tracks still didn’t have padded gates. Exposed openings – like the one where Hodnett died – were extremely dangerous, he said, because their blunt edges took the full force of impacts.

“You hit the opening of a wall that’s going to be a very, very injury-producing accident,” Olvey said. “The kind of thing that can easily cause a fatality, depending on where a person’s body is in relation to that piece of wall.”

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Steve Inch, the promoter at Selinsgrove Speedway, said his track has attempted to vastly improve safety in recent years, including replacing guard rails and installing catch fences.

About 20 years ago, Inch said, the track removed several pit openings and over the years attempted to slant its openings to avoid dangerous edges.

"We angled everything back,” he said. “There's no blunt ends to our openings, there's no abutments that a car could hit directly."

Inch added, his track – like BAPS – added water barrels in the wake of Hodnett’s death as an extra precaution.

Selinsgrove is also considering the addition of padded gates next year, he said.

A major problem, Inch and several drivers told PennLive, is raceways often have thin margins and don’t have the money to invest easily in the safety upgrades they’d like.

“A lot of dirt tracks across the country are what you would call 'mom and pop' businesses," Inch said.

Donny Schatz, a North Dakota driver and 10-time World of Outlaws champ, is sympathetic to those concerns.

Schatz formerly owned Red River Valley Speedway in North Dakota. He said its week-to-week margins were very tight.

Even investing in smaller upgrades like gates and safer walls could be costly.

"All those things add up,” Schatz said. “And if you put it on paper, you don't get your money back.”

For that reason, Schatz said he was wary of suggesting more tracks should have padded gates.

The time it takes to lock and unlock them can also delay races and, because staff are needed to man them, they can be placed at risk.

On the other hand, Schatz said, he also had seen them save lives.

"I have seen guys hit those gates and it's kept them from hitting a blunt opening,” Schatz said. “So, yes, I definitely think gates are a good safety feature”

Some safety experts are less sympathetic to arguments that measures like padded gates are too expensive.

"How much is a life worth?" said Olvey, the associate professor at the University of Miami.

Olvey, who formerly inspected race tracks for safety problems as a consultant, said there are many small changes tracks can make to improve safety that aren’t cost prohibitive.

"Sure, there's cost but it's not horrific,” Olvey said. “There's a whole gamut of processes to make it better but at least an effort should be made to improve it."

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The failure to address openings, safety experts and some drivers said, was indicative of larger safety issues in short-track racing.

LaJoie, the former NASCAR driver who now promotes safety, said the major and ongoing problem in sprint car racing is the design of the cars.

Since Earnhardt’s death in 2001, NASCAR has overhauled its vehicles.

The average car today is a tour-de-force of safety measures compared to earlier counterparts: roll cages were redesigned, crushable materials were added to better absorb impacts, and driver's seats were moved farther away from the door to avoid side impacts like the one that killed Hodnett.

Starting in 2019, NASCAR will cut the horsepower of its top cars from 850 to 550 at about half of its tracks. The move is designed to make the cars slower and safer.

One of the major reasons sprint car racing is so dangerous is that the vehicles have powerful engines, light frames and a high center of gravity. A sprint car weighs about half that of a passenger vehicle but has approximately 850 horsepower.

A typical sprint car (top) produces about the same amount of horsepower as a NASCAR Monster Energy car. A sprint car, however, weighs about 1,800 pounds less.

Despite that, LaJoie said, manufacturers of short-track cars have not kept pace with NASCAR’s changes.

"The car builders have been very slow to help the safety industry help the drivers,” LaJoie said. “I have been battling this for 20 years, and I will continue to battle."

Meanwhile, Terry Trammell, a safety consultant for IndyCar and a leading expert in motorsport medicine, said there is a larger problem in short-track racing: awareness.

Trammell said he isn’t closely involved with sprint car racing, but he distinctly remembered a safety session he held with short-track teams about two years ago.

Trammell was surprised by how little the drivers understood about the amount of force involved in crashes and, for instance, the difference between effective padding and ineffective.

“It was kind of, they’d scratch their heads and go ‘Wow’,” he said.

Trammell pointed to a different example: the 2016 death of Bryan Clauson, a well-known short-track driver. One of the findings of the crash investigation was that Clauson’s shoulder harness had been improperly anchored.

The problem wasn’t isolated. Trammell said many drivers were improperly using the straps.

"That was a simple thing,” he said. “They thought they were doing everything right, and it was a lack of understanding about the forces that were applied.”

The problem, Trammell said, is today, more so than other forms of racing, those issues are more likely to be addressed after a driver dies than before. Last week, several central Pennsylvania tracks said they would take part in a national sprint car council that focused on safety initiatives, improving consistency in rules, and maintaining costs.

LaJoie pointed to what he called a cultural issue: many drivers are more interested in spending their money on cosmetic or performance upgrades rather than safety.

“It simply amazes me somebody will balk at getting a $850 seat for their car but not a $2,000 paint job,” LaJoie said. “That’s not going to save your life if you hit a wall.”

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Some safety experts said there’s a clear solution for improving safety in short-track racing: regulation.

New Jersey is the only state in the nation that regulates motorsports, Lajoie said.

Requirement NJ PA Inspections of tracks Yes No Spot inspections of equipment before racing Yes No EMTs and ambulance on-site during racing Yes No Driver age limit Yes No Head-and-neck restraints for drivers Yes No Tracks must report injury and death stats to state Yes No Full containment seats for vehicles No No

The state has had just five deaths in the past 10 years.

“It’s one of the safest states to race in,” LaJoie said.

New Jersey’s regulation is handled by the state police.

The police license speedways, inspect them annually and may conduct spot inspections during races. Tracks are required to have emergency personnel on-site and abide by an array of other conditions.

Drivers, meanwhile, are required to wear head-and-neck devices and other safety gear, like fireproof clothing.

“You name it, we regulate it,” said Michael Kowalski, a detective sergeant with the state’s motor racing vehicle control squad.

Kowalski said he couldn’t comment on the circumstances surrounding Hodnett’s death. However, he said pit openings were generally identified during inspections as potential hazards that required mitigation.

Greg Hodnett during hot laps at Williams Grove Speedway in June 2017. James Robinson

Kowalski said there was no "one size fits all" approach to mitigating that risk because each track was designed differently, but water barrels – or some kind of “attenuating barrier”– were a common solution.

Several of the drivers PennLive spoke with rejected the idea of regulation.

Rahmer described some of New Jersey’s rules as absurd. He said many requirements, like wearing head-and-neck restraints, are steps that drivers already take.

"All the stuff they do, I don't think it protects them anymore than what we do in Pennsylvania," he said.

But other drivers struck a middle ground.

Schatz said while he agreed that New Jersey had some rules he thought were nonsensical – like a requirement to tape foil over a fuel line – it was difficult to argue against annual inspections.

“I think any time that the state requires an inspection of a facility, I think it’s going to be good for all involved,” Schatz said.

Sherry Hodnett, who is advocating for greater safety awareness in the wake of her husband’s death, agreed.

Hodnett is a hairstylist and said her salon is inspected annually by the state. It made no sense to her, she said, that race tracks weren’t subject to any regulation.

"And I’m just doing hair,” she said. “I’m not driving 140-mph-plus on a racetrack. So yes, I absolutely think there should be regulations like that on a race track.”

At the end of the day, however, most driver and safety experts told PennLive, while every measure should be taken to improve safety at short tracks, there was no way to prevent every death.

Heimbach, the Selinsgrove racer, said that was a risk many racers were willing to accept.

"Accidents are called accidents for a reason,” he said. “Sometimes, you can’t explain them, sometimes it is what it is.”