Motorsports Promotion: Accidents or No Accidents

Motorsports can be cruel and events can occur in untimely fashion.

For about two weeks I had been thinking about how accidents and crashes are used in advertising for motorsports series. Whether it is IndyCar, NASCAR, Formula One, etc., we see series and broadcasting partners include accidents in promotional material.

When used it can draw a response from a segment of audience that is dismissive. This segments reviles when accidents are used and it seems to be because they believe when accidents are shown a true representation of a race is not being given to the audience. It is seen as an exaggeration of a race and it leads to a misrepresentation of what a series is and it can draw in the wrong people. By showing accidents it draws in people who are only there for the accidents, the carnage and these people will not respect the competitors. They are there not for the competition but for schadenfreude, receiving joy out of another person's failure, in this case celebrating an accident, which can have horrible consequences.

Those horrible consequences are why people push back against the crowd only there for the accidents. It is an audience only into blood sports. They have no concern for the dangers. It is not them out there. They want to see something spectacular but do not think twice about what could happen to the man or woman behind the wheel.

Those horrible consequences were reality last weekend at Spa-Francorchamps with the fatal accident of Anthoine Hubert.

It is tough to talk about accidents at this time and then to dive into the utterly meaningless nature of promotions and advertising makes you shake your head.

However, I think Hubert's accident has helped me wrap my head around this and it has simplified the debate. After seeing the worst motorsports can give us it provides clarity. When death occurs it puts into place everything that happens in life and what is important and what is not.

Knowing these are still somber times I will approach the topic from a respectful but critical viewpoint.

After last weekend, I believe there are three trains of thought when it comes to using accidents in promotions: Accidents should never be used, accidents should be used only if it did not have a serious injury or fatality, all accidents are fair game.

I am going to go over these from one polar end to the other and discuss all the pros and cons to each.

Accidents Should Never Be Used in Promotions
This viewpoint is held by those who are race focused. These people want the race to be the selling point. They want passing, quick hand movements, close quarters action and speed to be shown to the masses. They want the highest level of ability being sold to the people. They want to show the skill of the drivers and that is why they want people coming to series. They want other people who see the skill and respect it.

That is a notable thing to want and it is the same with any sport. Any sport wants to show its best athletes playing the game at the highest level. Hockey fans want the promotional material to be Sidney Crosby carving through three defensemen and putting the puck in the top corner from his backhand. Basketball fans want LeBron James chasing a defender down on defense and pinning a layup against backboard. Soccer fans want Lionel Messi nutmegging or breaking a defenders ankles and then slotting a ball into the goal.

It is reasonable for race fans to want the best of the drivers shown.

The push back I have is it is hard to show the skill of a driver and condense it to a 30-second advertisement. No 30-second advertisement is going to capture that. It can get pieces of it but sometimes when you take those spectacular moments out of context it does not look that spectacular. It is something you have to invest in to understand or have it make sense.

There are plenty of clear things that happen in a race that can be used: Passes, saves, side-by-side action, those all make up a race but accidents are part of a race as well. Not showing accidents is kind of disingenuous. Everyone knows accidents happen in motorsports. Not showing them is almost hiding it and people will call that out as well.

I think there is a happy medium and that brings us to our next train of thought....

Accidents Should Be Used Only if it Did Not Have a Serious Injury or Fatality
This is where we are today. When you see promotions for motorsports, if it has an accident or two in it, these are accidents when all the drivers involved walked away and let's be honest, about 97% of all accidents have all the drivers involved walk away. That means 97% of accidents are fair game to be used.

The promotions are not snuff films. They aren't glorying death. They are not selling death. They are selling what can happen when everyone is racing at the limit. When the drivers reach the limit there is a chance they will go over the line and the end result when going over the line is an accident. Some accidents are the back end stepping out and clipping the barrier and it is a single-car accident. Other times it is three cars getting together in one corner. Then there are the breath-taking accidents, the collision between Scott Dixon and Jay Howard in the 2017 Indianapolis 500 comes to mind.

The Dixon-Howard accident was a visual spectacle. Dixon's car floated like a kite before contact with the barrier on the inside of the short chute. It is something we cannot envision happening and it did and Dixon walked away. That is what makes it even more unfathomable. Sanity would tell us no one who flies through the air at 200 MPH in an automobile should live and yet not only did this man survive but he got out of the car seconds later and was standing on his own two feet.

Dixon's accident was used in a few IndyCar commercials and it drew some ire from the fan base. I can understand it but here is where we get to the happy medium. If a promotion is supposed to capture all aspects of a race that includes accidents but there also comes a correct representation of a race.

You can have a 30-second commercial that is nothing but accidents. The problem is that is a true representation of a race. No race is nothing but accidents, not even the races that seem like are nothing but accidents are nothing but accidents. That would be something worthy to get upset about.

If we use this year's statistics alone, 13.336% of all laps completed in the first 16 races in the 2019 IndyCar season have been under caution. Not every caution is because of an accident. Some are for debris and others are for cars breaking down on circuit but let's just use that 13.336% as a base. If 13.336% of a 30-second commercial is given to accidents than that is four seconds. That is not a lot of time. If four seconds of a commercial or even six or seven seconds is an accident or a pair of accidents I am not sure we can get upset with that.

We also need to be honest with ourselves. Majority of people that watch a race and follow a series on a regular basis do it because they love motorsports. They are not in it for the thrills. But even the most passionate fans have to admit that some of the moments that stand out in their minds are the accidents.

We remember Dixon and Howard. We remember Ryan Briscoe and Ryan Hunter-Reay getting together at Fontana. We remember Graham Rahal and Marco Andretti getting together at Long Beach. We remember when Tony Kanaan took out half the field at Texas two years ago.

Those aren't the moments we harp on but if asked what do we remember about certain races there is a good chance we are going to remember an accident. Just because you remember an accident doesn't mean you are celebrating it or that is all you care about but it is a memorable part of a race. There are those that are visually memorable, like Dixon's and Briscoe's but accidents are memorable because they can change what happens in a race.

Look at Dixon and Colton Herta's accident at Texas this year. That will be remembered when people talk about the 2019 Texas race because it also set up the late battle between Josef Newgarden and Alexander Rossi. This year's Indianapolis 500 was changed because Graham Rahal and Sébastien Bourdais got together in turn three. If those two do not get together Alexander Rossi most likely runs away with his second Indianapolis 500 victory.

I think there is a happy medium. Not every accident is visually jarring and if the promotion is not too heavily focused on accidents then it can provide an accurate representation of what happens in a race.

But there is another side to the happy medium.

All Accidents are Fair Game
Welcome to the other side of the spectrum. The same way showing no accidents is an extreme showing any accident is also an extreme.

The argument that can be made here is if you want a true representation of a race than you have to include everything that could happen in a race and that includes these unfortunate accidents where drivers are hurt or killed.

However, there is a moral pushback to it. The same way everyone knows accidents happen in motorsports everyone also knows fatalities can occur in motorsports. The same way everyone knows injuries can happen in other sports.

Promoting a motorsports series does not need to be surgeon general's warning. It doesn't need to show the worst of what could happen.

Other sports do the same. We do not see cheap shots included in hockey commercials or terrible leg injuries in basketball or soccer commercials. All those occur in those sports but that isn't something to sell. It occurs, we know it occurs but we don't need to see it. It is in the back of our minds.

For decades now we have had on television these home video shows and they show people getting into some hair raising situations but the key thing is they do not show a video unless everyone is ok. That is a pretty good standard to keep. We know what is in good taste and what is not in good taste. We all know where the line is and we know not to cross it.

I do think the world is changing and what I mean by that is I do not think the audience that only watches for the crashes exists anymore, or at least it is not an audience that is tuning in like they once did. We live in a world of instant gratification. Anything we want to see we can get in seconds. If we want to watch a television that has been off the air for 25 years we can find it on a number of streaming services. If we want to hear a song we can just look it up. We don't have to wait to hear it on the radio or purchase an album.

The same is true with crashes. No one has to watch a race anymore to see crashes. It is actually the most inefficient way to watch crashes. You can go to YouTube and find compilations of crashes from the last 60 years in motorsports. You don't need a current race. A current race would actually waste your time. You could spend two hours watching a race and not see what you want. The Internet has allowed you to have nothing but crashes if that is what your heart desires. You can spend two hours watching nothing but 20-minute compilations of crashes. With that existing, a series is not going to draw these fans in. The audience does not have the patience to wait and see one in real time.

I think there is an accurate way for a promotion to include all aspects of a motorsports event. Those creating those promotions know right and wrong, what to include and what is forever off limits. I believe those in charge recognize the responsibility that is in their hands and will make the correct decisions.