Author: ICMS Admin
2018 Annual Congress Presentation Series Available to Members – #2
Over the next couple of months we will continue to post the presentations given at the 2018 Annual Congress. The material is included under the Members Only section.
Here is the link for this week’s presentation, please note there are sections in this audio that are hard to hear, you may need to turn up your volume:
Title: Concussions, Difficult to Diagnose, More Difficult to Manage
Speaker: Kester Need, D.O.
Speaker Bio: Dr. Nedd is a Board-Certified Neurologist with Subspecialty training in Neurological Rehabilitation and Neuro-trauma with Board Certification by the Neural Repair and Rehabilitation Certification United Council for Neurologic Subspecialties. He currently serves as the Medical Director of the Usports Brain Concussion Program and a team physician for the University of Miami Hurricane Athletic program. He is an Associate Professor of Neurology in the Department of Neurology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Kester is involved in the evaluation of and treatment of retired NFL players that are part of the settlement program set up by the NFL.
Click here to view this Presentation and Audio.
2018 Annual Congress Presentation Series Available to Members
The 30th Annual Congress was a milestone in the history of the ICMS and attendance was very strong at the two-day event. This was the fourth year for the Race Track Safety Program (RTSP), which included a number of outstanding safety innovations and experiences.
Over the next few months we will be posting the presentations given at the Annual Congress. This will include both the PowerPoint and audio file when available. The material will be posted under the Members Only section of the website.
Take advantage of your membership and take a another look at these inspiring and educational presentations; and if you didn’t have the opportunity to attend the congress, this is your chance to review the material.
Stay tuned as a new presentation is uploaded each week. Here is this week’s presentation:
Title: Development of New Techniques of Concussion Diagnosis
Speaker: Charles Tator, M.D.
Speaker Bio: Dr. Tator trained in neurosurgery and neuropathology at the University of Toronto, and was the university’s Chair of Neurosurgery, from 1989-99. He was Head of Neurosurgery at the Toronto Western Hospital, and the University Health Network. In 1992, he founded ThinkFirst, Canada, a national brain and spinal cord injury foundation aimed at reducing the incidence of catastrophic brain and spinal cord injuries. Charles has performed research on the epidemiology, prevention and treatment of brain and spinal cord injury. He was inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame for his work on prevention of spinal cord injuries and concussions in sports.
Click here to view this Presentation and Audio.
In Memoriam – Charlie Whiting
MELBOURNE, Australia, Thursday, March 14, 2019 – FIA Formula One Race Director, Permanent Starter, Safety Delegate and Head of the F1 Technical Department.
The International Council of Motorsports Sciences extends its deep condolences to the family and friends of Charlie Whiting (1952-2019). We are all in a state of shock and deeply saddened by the sudden loss of this iconic member of the motorsports family.
The entire world of motorsport was shocked and saddened to learn of the sudden death of the iconic Charlie Whiting of a pulmonary embolus the day before the first Formula One race of 2019. Charlie devoted his entire adult life to all aspects of motorsport. He was a mechanic with the Hesketh Team in 1977. He joined the Brabham Team owned by Bernie Ecclestone in 1978, working his way up to becoming Chief Mechanic, being instrumental in Nelson Piquet winning F-1 World Championships. When Bernie became involved in his phenomenally successful promotion of Formula One, Charlie was appointed FIA Technical Delegate in 1988, becoming ever more involved in the technical and safety aspects of motorsport.Recognizing his great knowledge and experience, and his dependable poise and calm under pressure, he was appointed F-1 Race Director, Safety Delegate and Permanent Race Starter in 1997. Over the next 22 years, Charlie earned the respect and admiration of drivers, constructors, team owners, race promoters, circuit builders, the international race media, race rescue and medical teams and organizations and national and international motorsport organizations.I first met Charlie in 1978 when he was a mechanic with Brabham {together with Herbie Blash and Alan Woollard} and we became comfortable friends over the past 40 years. In my many travels with my great friend, Professor Sid Watkins, we often had conversations with Charlie about medical and safety aspects of motorsport… particularly F-1. He was a determined supporter of reinforced tubs, wheel tethers, the HANS device, head surround protection and the HALO. He was a consistent participant in the deliberations of the joint engineering / medical discussions of the FIA International Institute for Motor Sport Safety in Paris from 2007 through 2017. At the ICMS in 2015, he generously accepted our invitation to be a special speaker at our Annual General Meeting in Indianapolis. Charlie was aware of the volatile politics in Formula One, but his was a constant voice of calm and reason. He was an iconic and charismatic ambassador for all of motorsport. He will be missed by all.
From Steve Olvey, M.D.
We have tragically lost a truly remarkable icon within our sport. Charlie Whiting has touched every aspect of our sport in some lasting way. He was a resource to many, a mentor to some, and a friend to everyone who knew him at all well. Always calm, but firm when necessary, he handled many of the most difficult situations our sport can manufacture. He shared the knowledge he had amassed through the years he served as a chief mechanic on the team he began his career with through the many years within the FIA as basically the last word in Formula 1. If there was a difficult problem to be solved, he was front and center.
The safety and wellbeing of us all was his prime motivation. He could dress you down without offending or humiliating you and he could bolster you when you were not at your best. He was amenable to change if it was for the better of all and he fought anything that was unfair or detrimental in any way. A man like Charlie comes along only rarely, usually when the world needs them the most. His ability, humor, fairness, honesty, strength, and vision will be truly missed by those of us who made contact with him as we played whatever roll we had acquired. For those of you who were yet to meet him you don’t know it, but you had already been touched by his presence. Charlie, the racing world is unanimous in wishing you God Speed!
From Rob Seal, M.D.
Charlie Whiting earned his status naturally by virtue of his many achievements and the roles that he played in motorsports, as well as by his interactions with others on a daily basis. Despite being an incredibly busy person charged with a great deal of responsibility, he was humble and very approachable. Many other positive personal traits and attributes as evidenced by the way that he treated others readily spring forth when describing him including integrity, sincerity, dignity, respectfulness, efficiency, honesty. On a personal note, of the roughly 4,000 email contacts that I have in my address book, there is no question that Charlie Whiting would win in two categories – most rapid response and most concise yet friendly response.
Through the combination of his intellect, common sense, and powers of observation, his many years in motorsports made him an immense source of knowledge and wisdom. Many of us were able to experience this first hand in candid conversation with him about the management of a racing incident. As mentioned in the tribute written by Beaux Barfield, beneficiaries of Charlie Whiting’s deep understanding of motorsports and common sense extended beyond Formula One to other racing series and to those for whom he conducted track inspections. Collectively, the ICMS benefited from his depth of knowledge and experience when we were honored by his presentation at our 2015 Annual Congress.
The outpouring of tributes to Charlie Whiting serve as evidence that he made many significant contributions to the motorsports safety and the evolution of the governance of the sport. His impacts were both global and individual. Charlie Whiting was charismatic person who will be revered and celebrated in our memories and greatly missed by all.
From Terry Trammell, M.D.
I first met Charlie Whiting at one of the early meetings of the Expert Advisory Group in 2000, when I was invited to join the group by Professor Sid Watkins. During the interval from 2000 – until 2005 I attended the meetings of that group and its successor the FIA Institute for Motor Sport Safety and Sustainability. During that period, I was privileged to know and work with Charlie. He was a kind, intuitive and respectful. He always seemed to be well informed, in command of the facts, which he processed with clarity and rapidity before voicing his opinion. In my interactions with him he was very insightful and seldom incorrect in his assessments.
The most memorable occasion that I can recall was his appearance at the Safety Truck that I was riding in at a CART race in Denver. That was in 2002. This was the event that ran on the temporary street circuit near the Pepsi Center. I glanced in the rear-view side mirror and saw him walk behind our truck. He was looking at the run off and the tire barriers placed there as he was walking up to the passenger side of our truck.
I was a bit taken aback that he was at a CART Race in the States and never did get a straight answer to my question of “what are you doing here?” We chatted for a while and something occurred on the track that drew my attention. When I looked back to where he had been standing, he had vanished. With his shock of nearly snow-white hair and his habit of appearing where least expected without any to do, I took to calling him the “grey ghost”. He was everywhere appearing and disappearing like an apparition.
Charlie was one of a kind and will leave a post that I doubt will ever be filled by a single person. It saddens me personally that I’ll not seem him again. Motorsports has lost a true champion that was always on to his next task and subsequent victory in the field of driver safety and protection. Rest in Peace Charlie!
In Memoriam – Dr. Robert Hubbard
EAST LANSING, Michigan, Tuesday, February 5, 2019 – Inventor (with driver Jim Downing) of the HANS, one of the most significant safety devices ever created for Motor Sport.
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Dr. Robert Hubbard – (1944 – 2019), esteemed Professor of Biomechanical Engineering retired at the Michigan State University , and inventor of the HANS passed away this past week. He was a mentor, friend and colleague that I was fortunate to have known.
Trying to Eulogize Dr. Hubbard is either a task that I am incapable of doing or one which is quite simply put, the lives that his invention, HANS, saved are innumerable. The debt that those whose lives were saved by him can never be repaid only remembered.
I am one of the fortunate who will always remember him and to him I owe a debt of gratitude.
I first met Bob when he made an appointment and came to see me in my office, not as a patient but as an inventor and a motorsports pioneer in driver safety, although I didn’t know it at the time. He wanted to teach me about his invention the HANS (Head and Neck Support). He enthusiastically and patiently walked me through the biomechanics of the device and how it would lessen the risk of a basilar skull fracture in a frontal racing crash. That was in 1983 or early 1984. I was intrigued enough to ask if we could try it on a driver. It happened that Michael Andretti was testing the Kraco IndyCar at Indianapolis Raceway Park that day. Bob and I took HANS to the track and attempted to have Michael get into the race car with it on. The device was a large bulky horse collar and was wider than the cockpit opening. I thanked Dr. Hubbard politely saying that I thought that it was a great idea but….
I had kept in touch with him and followed the device and its development as it was downsized. I operated on a number of drivers necks who wanted to get back into the race car often before their “stiches” were out. To facilitate this I used the HANS as a post-operative “dynamic“ protective orthosis mandating that when the driver returned to racing he / she had to wear the HANS in order for me to clear them to return to racing. During that time HANS was “prescribed” as a post- operative orthosis.
From the time Bob walked through my office door, his affable personality and enthusiasm for motorsport safety and his scholarly professorial tolerance for those of us less brilliant than himself drew me to him. Fast forward 15 years from that initial encounter. I was sitting on the front bumper of Safety 2 at the top of the “corkscrew” at the Laguna Seca raceway covering the CART racing series. I was taking notes to share with my wife Rhonda who was racing in the Barber Dodge Pro Series, when Gonzolo Rodriquez went off track and vaulted the catch fence going “out of the park”. He died from a basilar skull fracture. That was 9/11/99.
The following week I called Bob, asked him if he remembered me, which he said he did, and inquired if I could get a HANS for Rhonda that would fit in her Barber Dodge car. That is when I became acquainted with Jim Downing. Bob was a by the book professor and to this day every HANS that I have, I paid full price for. Bob in his patient teacher mode said it had to be that way so that I could carry out unbiased scientific investigation of the HANS performance. The result being that we published several papers establishing the efficacy of the HANS.
During the time that the Barber Dodge Pro Series ran under the CART sanction I functioned as the de facto Medical Director for the series and as such with Bob’s help provided any driver in the series who wanted one, a “loaner” HANS. I made sure they all wanted one. The use of the HANS was mandated for the Barber Dodge Pro Series by me during the 2000 season in advance of CART doing so. Bob and Jim made that possible through their generosity at a time when that was a financially big deal. It worked out for all of us since eventually all the drivers bought their own.
Now for the part where I incur the personal debt to Bob: in the Barber Dodge race in Detroit in 2002 Rhonda got pushed wide to the outside of turn 1 and clipped a tire stack that had been displaced in a previous incident and not replaced. This caused her car to rotate up on the right side and nearly inverting. When all was said and done she reported that she had just bumped the tires and that it never bother anything least of all her neck. She was wearing her HANS. Thanks Bob….I think. J
Dr. Hubbard’s dedication to the prevention of basilar skull fractures was patient, persistent and indefatigable. He was always there to help out, with the exception of checking my math for one of the papers we wrote together. He told me that a full professor didn’t check his student’s math, he had teaching assistants to do that. (I think that he was joking and it was his way of telling me that he trusted my math, without telling me that he did, always trying to help out this time by keeping my ego in check.)
I will miss Bob as will we all. Motorsports has lost one of its greatest driver safety advocates and spokesperson for motorsports safety in general. I have lost a trusted colleague and above all a good friend.
Bob thank you from all of us…RIP
Terry R Trammell MD
From left to right: Jim Downing, Robert Hubbard, John Melvin, Kurt Russell, Tom Gideon
From left to right: Andy Mellor, Robert Hubbard, Peter Wright
ICMS Board of Directors 2019 Election Certification
- Bobby Lewis
- Bruce Macdonald
- Steve Olvey
Rob Seal, M.D., Secretary / Treasurer & Don Andrews, Executive Director
2017 Annual Congress Presentation Series Available to Members – #15
Over the past couple of months we have be posting the presentations given at the 29th Annual Congress and were happy to include, for the first time, both the PowerPoint and audio file when available.
This post is the final one for the 2017 presentation series. We hope that you have enjoyed reviewing the material, and rest assured It will continue to be available under the Members Only section.
If you are not a member and would like to access this inspiring material, please take a look a this link with more information on becoming a Member of the ICMS click here.
Here is this weeks presentation:
Title: Concussion Considerations: Return to Competitive Race Car Driving
Speaker: Julia Daly, DPT
Speaker Bio: Ms. Daly graduated from Boston University with a Bachelor of Science in Athletic Training and a Doctorate in Physical Therapy. She was inspired to conduct her doctoral thesis project on concussion in racing after her father sustained a concussion during a race and had difficulty returning to racing activities. Julia has been attending motorsport events since the age of three and has worked in various aspects of racing events, including timing and scoring, race control video playback, and personal training for racers. She continues to pursue concussion research at the racetrack, where she is dedicated to helping drivers experience a safer and healthier racing environment.
Click here to view this Presentation & Audio.
2017 Annual Congress Presentation Series Available to Members – #14
Over the next couple of weeks we will continue to post the presentations given at the 2017 Annual Congress. There are just a coupe more left, don’t miss out on reviewing them!
The material is included under the Members Only section.
For information on becoming a Member of the ICMS click here.
Here is this weeks presentation:
Title: Physical Response to Driving a Race Car
Speaker: David Ferguson, Ph.D.
Speaker Bio: Dr. Ferguson received his Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology from the University of Nevada Las Vegas, Master of Science in Clinical Exercise Physiology from the University of North Carolina Charlotte, and his Doctorate of Philosophy in Exercise Physiology from Texas A&M University. He has worked with a number of NASCAR teams to improve pit crew performance and also worked closely with IndyCar Series driver Charlie Kimball, the first licensed driver with diabetes to win a race in that series. David is currently a member of the ACSM Motorsport Health and Safety.
Click here to view this Presentation & Audio.
2017 Annual Congress Presentation Series Available to Members – #13
Over the next couple of weeks we will continue to post the presentations given at the 2017 Annual Congress. The material is included under the Members Only section.
For information on becoming a Member of the ICMS click here.
Stay tuned as a new presentation is uploaded each week. Here is this weeks presentation:
Title: PANEL – Update on Occulomotor Vestibular, Reaction Time (OVRT) Testing
Speaker: Terry Trammell, M.D.
Speaker Bio: Dr. Trammell is a founding member of the ICMS. His undergraduate degree is from Vanderbilt University and he completed medical school and his orthopedic residency at Indiana University. He also completed a spinal surgery fellowship at the University of Toronto. Terry served as the orthopedic consultant to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway from 1981 thru 1995, and was involved with CART Medical Services from 1984 to 2008.. His interest in motorsports safety research has led to the implementation of many of today’s safety innovations. Dr. Trammell is a founding member of the FIA Medical Commission and a consultant to many international motorsport organizations.
Click here to view this Presentation & Audio.
2017 Annual Congress Presentation Series Available to Members – #12
Over the next couple of weeks we will continue to post the presentations given at the 2017 Annual Congress. The material is included under the Members Only section.
For information on becoming a Member of the ICMS click here.
Stay tuned as a new presentation is uploaded each week. Here is this weeks presentation:
Title: PANEL – Update on Occulomotor Vestibular, Reaction Time (OVRT) Testing
Speaker: Naomi Deakin, M.B.
Speaker Bio: Dr Deakin completed her undergraduate medical degree at Robinson College, University of Cambridge. She is an Affiliate Member of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons and is a Registered Doctor with the UK Motorsports Association (MSA). Her most recent collaboration is with the University of Miami to explore the use of OVRT technology in IndyCar. Naomi has a strong interest in motorsport and has been part of the Medical Team at Silverstone race circuit, UK since 2012. Most recently, she has been appointed ‘Concussion Fellow’ for TOCA, a UK professional package of six racing series including the British Touring Car Championship and FIA Formula 4.
Click here to view this Presentation & Audio.
Alex Zanardi Shows How His Modified BMW M4 DTM Works
Alex Zanardi is one of the most resilient athletes on the planet. From a motor sport career that included a stint in Formula One, two CART Championships (1997-1998) and competing in the World Touring Car Championship to handcycling in international games and gold and silver medals at the Paralympic Games in London and Rio de Janeiro.
Alex has a never quit attitude and despite losing both legs in a horrific ChampCar accident in Germany during the 2001 season it did not preclude him from becoming a world class Paralympic athlete.
His relationship with ICMS members runs deep as he has stated on many occasions that it was the CART Medical Team working with the EuroSpeedway track medical staff that saved his life. Their quick actions in Germany allow Alex to tell you the story of how his hand-controlled race car works in this video article today.
Click here to view the video.