Death
Weatherly died on January 19, 1964 from head injuries sustained in a racing accident at the fifth race of the 1964 season at Riverside International Raceway. His head went outside the car and struck a retaining wall, killing him instantly. Weatherly was not wearing a shoulder harness, and did not have a window net installed on his vehicle, because he was afraid of being trapped in a burning car.
He is one of two reigning champions of what is now known as the Sprint Cup Series to die during a season as the defending champion (1992 Winston Cup champion Alan Kulwicki, who died in a plane crash during the 1993 season, is the other) and the only one of the two to die during a race.
This tragedy eventually led NASCAR to mandate the window net, seven years later in 1971. Window nets are used in most stockcar racing series to this day.
Read more about this topic: Joe Weatherly
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“Since the death instinct exists in the heart of everything that lives, since we suffer from trying to repress it, since everything that lives longs for rest, let us unfasten the ties that bind us to life, let us cultivate our death wish, let us develop it, water it like a plant, let it grow unhindered. Suffering and fear are born from the repression of the death wish.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“Almost everybody in the neighborhood had “troubles,” frankly localized and specified; but only the chosen had “complications.” To have them was in itself a distinction, though it was also, in most cases, a death warrant. People struggled on for years with “troubles,” but they almost always succumbed to “complications.””
—Edith Wharton (1862–1937)
“If society gives up the right to impose the death penalty, then self help will appear again and personal vendettas will be around the corner.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)