Tim Baughman, INDYCAR's Director of Track Services in charge of the AMR INDYCAR Safety Team, recently took part in an interesting foreign exchange program with Holmatro Netherlands Rescue Consultant Ronald de Zanger.
De Zanger (shown above with Tim Baughman) will be working with Formula One as they review their on-track rescue and medical response model including the consideration of traveling safety team, and he attended INDYCAR's race at Pocono Raceway to see how the AMR INDYCAR Safety Team, considered the best in auto racing and is one of the few traveling safety teams in the sport, works.
INDYCAR also used de Zanger’s expertise in extraction and cutting techniques of the Formula One halo that provides cockpit safety. INDYCAR is currently testing and developing an Aeroscreen with Red Bull Technologies that will take aspects of the halo while adding a clear plexiglass shield to provide even more protection to drivers in the NTT IndyCar Series.
The exchange program proved to be very useful for both INDYCAR and de Zanger.
“Holmatro has been a long partner of INDYCAR since 1997,” Baughman told NTT INDYCAR Mobile in an interview last month at Pocono. “Back in May, we found out Holmatro was going to be partnering with Formula One as a tool provider and technical advisor. Harm Hermans, the CEO of Holmatro in The Netherlands, was in Indianapolis for the month of May at the Indianapolis 500 and he explained all of this to us. It would be an excellent opportunity have someone from Holmatro in the Netherlands to work with Formula One. Holmatro has already worked with Formula One on its halo and the ability to cut it. They were involved in the research before it was approved and installed on the cars.
“This exchange has taken many months to coordinate. They ideal arrangement was to have Ronald come over from Europe for back-to-back races. Hopefully an oval and a road/street course. Due to scheduling we were only able to get him here for this superspeedway race at Pocono. It’s probably the first time we’ve ever had someone shadow our team, ride on one of our trucks, and work as a temporary team member.
"We are familiar with the Formula One emergency response model using local responders When Formula One was at Indy, we stood up a safety team using local firefighters and paramedics. This has been the model for Formula One for all of their venues for years."
There were two different types of approaches in road course racing and street course racing. In Europe and at some club events in the U.S., corner marshals can be the first responders. They will approach the car with a fire extinguisher and make initial contact with the driver. In that model response vehicle are sent as necessary. The AMR INDYCAR Safety Team model sends the trucks immediately with everything needed to cover initial fire protection, medical assessment, rescue, and track recovery efforts.
“Our corner marshals in IndyCar are more observers and backups in terms of safety so they don’t go out there on foot," Baughman said.
De Zanger has an extensive background in fire rescue in The Netherlands before joining Holmatro in 2017.
“I think INDYCAR has a great setup,” de Zanger told NTT INDYCAR Mobile. “That’s part of the reason why I’m here, so they can tell me about their setup, the way they are trained and the way they work to make sure we can at least share the knowledge because we are partners with the INDYCAR Safety Team with the FIA and explain to them how it works here and if we can duplicate it and help them out in that way.
“Formula One does not have a safety team the same way as the AMR IndyCar team. They do have their own doctor that travels with the series. They have the medical staff sorted out. They have their traveling doctor in their own medical car. They will use their own extraction teams but need to be FIA approved. If they pass the exam, they can be on the safety team.”
When de Zanger reported back to the FIA, the overall ruling body of international racing, he stressed the value of INDYCAR’s AMR Safety Team is the best approach to providing first response and care in international motorsports.
“It really helps knowing the cars, knowing the drivers, knowing what is going on, but also, the amount of training and teamwork on the AMR Safety Team,” de Zanger said. “They are like a team playing together. They know what is going on every race. That is the best setup.
“Formula One hasn’t said out loud they want to do it like this, but they are starting now with the Formula Electric Series. They send out their own safety team similar to what the AMR team is. But they won’t carry hydraulic extrication tools.
“What the FIA does at this moment is send their own team for extraction. They lift out the driver. If a driver is trapped, they rely on local resources with hydraulic tools to help get them out.”
Baughman jumped in and noted that the INDYCAR AMR teams does it differently.
“Whereas in our setting, those are all combined,” Baughman said. “It’s the full team approach from the initial fire to assessing the driver, taking care of the driver and using all the tools.
“We just played the video of the Robert Wickens crash here and discussed it from the truck vantage point. All of those benchmarks were hit, from the approach of the cars, the fire extinguishers coming out, the medical goes to the driver immediately. If the driver is trapped, using the power hydraulic tools to cut the steering column off, then do the extraction part. Formula One has a team just to do that.
“We do all of those things with one team every weekend.”
One of the values of the INDYCAR safety approach is the familiarity of the medical history of each driver. By having a traveling team, INDYCAR’s safety crew has a knowledge of whether one of the drivers has sustained a prior injury and take that into consideration when they tend to them in the car after a crash.
“Earlier this year, Colton Herta hurt his wrist and at Detroit, his wrist was tender, so we knew that is what he had,” Baughman said. “That type of melding together of the safety, rescue, fire part with medical is beneficial. Dr. Geoffrey Billows (INDYCAR Director of Medical Affairs) is like one of our team members. Dr. Billows will let us know that a driver is cleared, but may have some tenderness or minor discomfort from a previous injury. In the event the we see the driver during the next event we know this injury may be associated with a previous injury. This helps us when preforming our initial injury assessment.
“More importantly, we know there are drivers that are taller and built different and which drivers are really good at getting themselves out of the car. Tony Kanaan is probably the fastest getting out of the car. Even today, he is very skilled at getting out of the car.”
One of de Zanger’s first assignments when he was hired by Holmatro in The Netherlands was working with the F1 halo. He will be working in Europe with Red Bull Technologies on the technical aspect of cutting the hoops on INDYCAR’s Aeroscreen.
“It’s a really, really cool arrangement to have this exchange happen. We have shared so much information, and strengthened our relationship with Holmatro, the Official Rescue Tool provider of INDYCAR and Indianapolis Motor Speedway.” Baughman said.
Baughman first started working as a paramedic at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1983, joined the IMS Safety Team in 1992 and started traveling with the AMR INDYCAR team in 1996, the first season of the Indy Racing League. He retired this past January from his position as Deputy Fire Chief of the Indianapolis Fire Department, where he worked with 1,300 firefighters at 43 fire stations in Indianapolis.
As INDYCAR's Director of Track Services, Baughman spoke of the valuable relationship and support from AMR, the leader in medical response in the U.S. and Holmatro, the worldwide leader in cutting tools used for extrication.
“There are financial and logistical challenges in having a traveling team. We hire people, pay their travel expenses, and move our equipment from event to event. We are blessed that INDYCAR made the investment to make sure we had a traveling team,” Baughman said. "We are also fortunate to have the support of our sponsors, AMR and Holmatro, who help offset some of these cost. In return we work hard to represent their companies by providing the best on-track response as possible.
“We frequently hear from participants of other forms of racing say, ‘We would love to have a safety team like yours.'”
The positive exposure from INDYCAR and some of the things we have accomplished over the last 30 years have played a role in other series deciding to do the same.
“There are a lot of barriers to getting there," de Zanger said. "INDYCAR made that commitment early. I think we are well on the way to getting this type of approach to all forms of racing.”