The Terrible Tunnel Turn

   NASCAR drivers take a lot of tricky turns.

   Literally.

   All over the country.

   There's "Calamity Corner," the fourth turn at Daytona International Speedway in Florida.

   There's "Humpty Bumpty Dumpty," the fourth turn at Lowe's Motor Speedway in North Carolina, a corner humorously nicknamed for the track president, Humpy Wheeler.

   And there are all four turns at Darlington Raceway in South Carolina, "The Track Too Tough To Tame."

   But "the turn for the worst," in my opinion, is the infamous "Tunnel Turn" at Pocono Raceway in the mountains of Pennsylvania, which the Nextel Cup tour visits during the coming weekend.    

   The list of drivers who have experienced trouble and suffered injuries in accidents in The Tunnel Turn at Pocono looks like a list of the sport's "Who's Who."

   Included are seven-time champions Richard Petty and the late Dale Earnhardt.  Others are all-time great Bobby Allison, whose illustrious career ended there, and also his late son, Davey.  Now-retired Harry Gant rode through a wild wreck at the tunnel, too.

   The cursable corner is the second of three turns at the triangular track, a 2.5-mile layout situated atop a mountain near the remote hamlet of Long Pond.  The turn got its name from being located directly above the tunnel leading to the infield and the garage area.    

   It's situated at the end of what is known as "The Long Pond Straight," a stretch of the track that is 3,055-feet long and very, very fast.  There's only eight degree banking in the turn and it's extremely narrow, creating significant challenges for drivers approaching it at approximately 185 miles per hour.

   Add to all this a sharp dogleg to the left exiting the corner, and The Tunnel Turn turn presents drivers with a maneuver, time and again throughout a race, that must be made expertly and delicately to avoid losing control of a 3,500-pound stock car.

   Dale Earnhardt once said, "It's simply a bad ass turn."

   The worst accident I ever saw at Pocono was the wreck in June of 1988 that ended the storied career of Bobby Allison and almost took his life.

   On the parade lap one of Bobby's tires started going down, but he wasn't in position to get onto pit road.  Bobby took the green flag, planning to nurse his car around and get into the pits for a new tire without losing a lap.  However, the low tire caused Bobby's car to loop nearing The Tunnel Turn, and he was hit hard in the driver's side door by another car.

   It took rescuers a long time to get Bobby out of his smashed vehicle, and he was hospitalized for weeks with critical head injuries.  Allison recovered after spending months in therapy, but never drove a race car in competition again.

   In 1979 Earnhardt sustained fractures of both collarbones and a bruised heart when he blew a tire while leading near the midway point of a 500-mile race at Pocono.  His car spun and slammed into the retaining barrier driver's side first.

   A year later, "The King," Richard Petty, experienced a wicked crash in The Tunnel Turn that left him with a fractured bone in his neck.  Petty kept the full nature of his injury secret from NASCAR officials for fear they would sideline him for the next few races.

   Richard vividly recalls what happened.

   "My car broke a wheel going up the straight toward the tunnel," said Petty.  "I was left with no control.  I couldn't turn the car and that corner is so sharp that I knew I was going to hit the wall in spite of everything I could do.

   "I hit it a ton!  Two tons.  The back of the car got up in the air and I almost went out of the track."

   Petty describes why the turn is so darkly ominous:

   "You build up terrific speed on that Long Pond straight, reaching maybe 185 miles an hour or a little more.  Then, suddenly, you're in a corner with little banking and only one good groove.  If you get the least bit out of whack, you're in big trouble.

   "Plus, that turn is so sharp, if trouble breaks out ahead, you can't see it.  You're coming up to go into the turn and WHAM!  There's a wreck you didn't even know was there."

   Davey Allison barrel-rolled violently off The Tunnel Turn at Pocono in July of 1992 while battling Darrell Waltrip and making contact that sent him out of control.  Davey suffered fractures in an arm and a broken collarbone.

   "When I came back around the track and saw how torn up Davey's car was and how the emergency team was working frantically to get him out, it almost made me sick to my stomach," said Waltrip.

    In July of 2002 Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Steve Park and Rusty Wallace became entangled in The Tunnel Turn and Park barrel-rolled similarly to Davey Allison, essentially destroying his car.  The machines of Junior and Rusty were heavily-damaged, too.

   Among the most enduring images of racing at Pocono is that of Junior leaping from his car and sprinting several yards to the battered car of Park to assist his teammate, who was badly shaken, but not seriously hurt.

   "The Tunnel Turn is by far the toughest in NASCAR," said Waltrip.  "In degree of difficulty, I rate it a 10."

   Even drivers who have raced themselves into commanding leads at Pocono and appear en route to victory remain apprehensive until they're two-thirds of the way through the final lap--and past The Tunnel Turn.

   Forgive me for this, but only then do they see the light beyond the end of the tunnel.