IndyCar safety crew aims to avoid looking like rank amateurs again

The IndyCar safety crew meeting was held Saturday at Iowa Speedway as it is at every track on the IndyCar schedule. IndyCar officials said attentiveness was at a season high in the aftermath of the sloppy rescue of Simona De Silvestro two weeks ago at Texas.

De Silvestro and two safety crew members suffered minor burns in the incident as rescuers did not follow protocol.

"It got us back in our classroom," said Mike Yates, IndyCar's safety manager who leads the group and their meetings. "I think sometimes you do something so much that when something happens (like De Silvestro's fire) it probably catches you out."

The crew also got to see the new mounting system for the hose on the front of the safety truck. It is now a straight pull — and a shorter hose by 40 percent — to reduce the chances for a kink like the one that slowed the rescue at Texas.

IndyCar president Brian Barnhart apologized to De Silvestro during Saturday's drivers meeting.

"It won't happen again," he said. Indy Star