Jack Roush’s crash landing of his personal aircraft last week not only put a spotlight on the NASCAR Sprint Cup team owner’s passion but also on the impact that private aircraft have on the sport of racing.
While Roush was heading to an air show and not a racetrack when the incident occurred, the accident did draw attention to the air travel necessary in the life of a NASCAR figure. Drivers, crews and owners fly to race tracks, to sponsor appearances and to tests on a regular basis. For them, flying is not a luxury, but more of a job requirement. They are simply asked to be in too many places over the course of the week to escape the necessity for air travel — much or all of it in private craft.
Some drivers even go the extra step, earning their pilot’s license and flying themselves to various sites. That’s certainly not a new trend in the sport, but it is one that draws attention when something like Roush’s crash occurs.
The demands and pulls of a busy schedule are more obvious for the drivers who pull double duty, running the full slate of both Sprint Cup and Nationwide races. This weekend, Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick shared a plane going cross country from the Sprint Cup events at Pocono Raceway to the Nationwide Series race at Iowa Speedway. Carl Edwards and Paul Menard were also among those traveling between the two tracks.
While the entire Roush Fenway Racing organization heaved a sigh of relief that Roush was OK after the crash — he is currently being treated for the facial injuries that required surgery and has been upgraded to fair condition at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota — they admitted that the incident was scary.
Greg Biffle says that he was initially confused when he learned of the accident because he overheard his wife, Nicole, talking about it on the phone. Biffle’s brother had departed on a flight Tuesday afternoon and initially he thought that was who was in the crash.
“Nicole’s phone rang while we were sitting on the couch watching TV,” Biffle said. “She was talking to whoever and was bright-eyed and I thought that she said, ‘Jeff’s plane crashed.’ That’s my brother and he was on a commercial flight from Charlotte to Portland. I couldn’t believe what she just said, and then she said, ‘Yeah, it’s confirmed. It was his airplane.’ That was the second thing she said, so I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh.’
“I didn’t even know what I was thinking, and then she said, ‘Yeah, it’s his tail number, November 6JR.’ And so then I realize that she said Jack and not Jeff, and I was just as devastated — come to find out it wasn’t my brother, it was Jack and this all takes place in about 15 seconds. So the first reports were that he crashed on arrival and that’s much worse than crashing on landing. None of it’s good, but if you crash off the airport a mile away, you’ve got big problems.”
Soon, the news became clearer that his plane had crashed on landing and that Roush would be OK. The team owner also survived the crash of a plane he was piloting in 2002.
Still, the news made Biffle and others think about their fast-paced lifestyle off the track — and what all it entails.
“We all know what we go through and take as many precautions as possible,” Biffle says. “The planes are much safer today than when we had the last tragic plane crash in the sport, just like our race cars are almost. You can almost compare it to that because the planes have proximity ground warning systems and lots of things, so our aircrafts are a lot safer.
“You look at it and I think it’s an isolated deal. I think the situation just arose and things can happen in a hurry. I’m a pilot and things can happen in a hurry.”
His teammate, Edwards, is also a pilot. In fact, Edwards has experience with the Oshkosh, Wis., airfield where Roush crashed upon landing.
He says that one always has to keep safety in mind when flying. As he heard about the crash, he says “that’s the greatest thing in the world to see him walk out of that airplane. It’s like they say, any landing you can walk away from is a good landing, so we’re just glad he’s okay.”
The driver has also flown into Oshkosh a couple of times and says that they “get more planes in and out of there than anywhere I’ve ever seen, so it’s very tight quarters and there are a lot of planes stacked up one behind the other, all at varying speeds, so it’s a high-pressure situation for the guys controlling from the ground and for the pilots.”
Still, the crash hasn’t scared Edwards away from flying. He clearly respects the danger of it, but sees this as a reminder to remain cautious and alert at all times.
“Flying is inherently dangerous,” Edwards said. “You’re defying gravity and it’s complex, but I think until we really know what happened — I mean, I don’t know what happened. I’ve flown in there. I’m as close to the situation as anyone. I’m a pilot and I still don’t understand exactly what happened. I think it’ll be really interesting to see what Jack has to say and how what went down went down.
“You’ve got to take safety really seriously. The Cessna Citation that I fly is serviced by the Citation Service Centers. We make sure that everything is up to snuff all the time, but it is a reminder, I think, to all of us. All of us fly on private planes at one point or another and we’re all going all over the place, and it’s a reminder that safety is more important than being there on time or any of the things we usually worry about.”
Joe Gibbs Racing’s Busch says that the safety of planes can cross one’s mind when getting ready for a trip.
Busch, who often competes in all three NASCAR series, has flown about as often as anyone in racing in recent years. Still, he admits that it’s just a necessary step in maintaining his racing pace — and something that catches the attention of his fiancée, Samantha Sarcinella. For the drivers, though, flying place to place, week to week, is simply another part of their job.
“Samantha is not a very big fan of it,” Busch says. “She’s always worried about it. To me, it is what it is. It’s your time when it’s your time. Fortunately Jack (Roush) has made it through, I don’t know if this is his second or third time, but he’s made it through.
“A couple of people this week were mentioning this week that he needs to go to Vegas and try his luck there because he has some pretty good luck.”
