INDIANAPOLIS (May 19, 1996) - Firestone announced Saturday that Scott Brayton's fatal crash during Indianapolis 500 practice was caused by a punctured tire. Indy 500 Report:
Punctured Tire Causes Crash
Brayton, the pole-position winner for the May 26 race, was killed Friday when his right rear tire went flat, sending him spinning into the second-turn wall at more than 230 mph. He never regained consciousness.
"We don't know what punctured this tire and we may never know," said Trevor Hoskins, vice president of public affairs for Bridgestone-Firestone. "We don't know where it came from. We're not casting blame on anyone at all. This was a racing incident in which a tire was punctured."
Firestone said Friday after the crash that it appeared there was no structural damage to the tire. That initial finding was confirmed Saturday by the company's analysts in Arkon, Ohio, said Al Speyer, motorsports manager for Bridgestone-Firestone.
"They have identified an area on the tire they believe is the puncture spot," Speyer said. "But it is so difficult to reconstruct the tire after it comes apart at such high speed."
He said Firestone recovered about 90 percent of the tire.
"Unfortunately, some of the pieces you don't get back may be the most critical ones you need to look at," Speyer said.
"We have looked at numerous other tires that have been running here, tires that have run longer, hotter and at higher speeds than the tire we have in question on this car," he continued. "We can find no evidence of any difficulty with those other tires. Our investigation went far beyond the individual tire."
Speyer said the puncture occurred on the inside shoulder of the tire, where the tread meets the ground, and that the object that cut the tire could have been the size of a pebble, or even smaller.
"These tires today, the speeds they're running, when something like this happens, it can be something quite small that would cause a puncture to a tire like this," he said.
"It doesn't have to be anything that would be readily visible to anyone, including the driver of the car or any of the observers. Very, very small pieces could cause something like this."
