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Junior drag racing has been suspended in WA pending the outcome of a police investigation into the death of an eight-year-old girl who died while driving her junior dragster at a venue in Perth's south.
Anita Board died when her car careened into a concrete barrier while taking it for a "test run" at a venue in Perth's south.
Her speed is not yet publicly known, but the vehicle was capable of travelling up to 96 kilometres per hour.
Anita's father, Ian Board, said the incident was a "one-in-a-million event" and he wanted junior drag racing to continue.
Photo:
Eight-year-old Anita Board died after her car hit a concrete barrier. (Facebook: Ian J Board)
"We chose drag racing because we believed it was the safest form of motorsport that we could allow our girls to do," he said.
"The history speaks for itself and sadly this one-in-a-million event happened to us, to our little girl.
"We do understand there needs to be a couple of changes but we don't believe there needs to be major change."
Sport and Recreation Minister Mick Murray announced this afternoon all drag racing at the Perth Motorplex — the only venue in the state where drag racing is held — would be halted until police complete their investigation into the nature of the accident.
"The suspension of this category of motorsport activity allows for a full investigation to be carried out into the nature of the accident," the statement said.
"The State Government will wait until the details of the accident are clear following the investigation before taking any further action."
Dangerous sport regulations
Karting
- Children as young as six can drive a kart which can reach speeds of up to 70 kilometres per hour. Once they turn seven, they can race the karts, but until they enter the 10-12 age category their engines are speed limited to about 70 kilometres per hour.
- That jumps to about 80 kilometres per hour for ages 10 to 12, and juniors aged 12 to 16 years old may get up to 90 kilometres per hour on the track.
Rock climbing
- As a private sport, there's no age limit. But youth sport leagues exist around Australia with children under 10 training in preparation for sport competitions.
- Rock climbing gym operator and enthusiast Scott Braithwaite said children as young as four could climb, but it was always in a very controlled environment.
- "Our sport is very, very safe," he said. "Climbing incidents are very few and far between, particularly in the indoor context."
Long distance swimming
- Kids as young as 14 can compete in most open water swims in Australia. They usually complete swims of up to five kilometres.
- There are safety officers and a medical officer on site at all official Swimming Australia events. There are also powered craft on standby to rescue any swimmers in distress.
Shooting
- A spokeswoman for the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia said they had about 6,500 junior members across Australia, and kids as young as 10 could take part.
- However all juniors had to be directly supervised by a licensed adult, and there was a heavy focus on safety in the industry. Firearms safety training is mandatory, and the association also conducts range days with Scouts Australia.
Horse riding
Formula 4 Racing
- Drivers competing in the F4 must be at least 15 years old and hold a provisional circuit competition licence. They don't need a standard car licence and can test at the age of 14.
- F4 cars can reach speeds of up to 220 kilometres per hour, but have advanced safety features derived from F1 racing.
- Drivers can't compete without completing a training and educational program conducted by the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport.
The most dangerous sports
While the spotlight has been thrown on drag racing following the tragedy on the weekend, many other dangerous sports remain unregulated in WA.
An Australian Institute of Health and Wellbeing study found AFL accounted for the most sport-related hospitalisations in Australia, followed by soccer and cycling.
However, this did not account for participation rates.
The study, which looked at data for 2011-12, found the three sports with the highest proportion of incidents posing a "high threat to life" were:
- cycling
- wheeled motorsports
- equestrian activities
Adolescent and child psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg said when parents were deciding how much risk their kids should take on, they should remember age does not define maturity and look instead to past behaviour.
"You'd weigh up things like their personality, their disposition, their temperament, and their proven levels of maturity," Dr Carr-Gregg said.
"You have to also recognise that the human brain has one hundred billion brain cells and a thousand trillion connections but they're not all wired up until about 23, in girls.
"So therefore to allow someone who is relatively young to engage in a sport where they may die if they make a mistake … is a bridge too far."
However, he said there were huge benefits to exposing children to a healthy amount of risk.
"One of the problems we know in Australia, according to all the research, is that young people lack resilience, and one way in which you can build resilience is encouraging healthy risk taking," Dr Carr-Gregg said.
"Every time you take a healthy risk and you succeed, even if you don't do very well, you get self definition.
'The only way you get better is experience'
Drag racer Rosco McGlashan, who holds Australia's fastest land speed record of 802.6 kilometres per hour, said kids took risks in everyday life and they needed to be given the chance to learn.
"Kids do sports every day of the week — riding horses, motocross … like golf or anything like that," he said.
"You can die on a golf course, the golf ball can hit you in the head. Anything can happen mate, you walk across the road and get killed.
"Daniel Ricciardo for example was driving go karts at that speed at that age … and look where he's at now."
McGlashan said the bigger risk was outside the racetrack.
"Probably the most dangerous thing I ever saw being involved and around motorsports wasn't actual cars, but possibly getting there … driving on the road going long-distance to get to the racetrack [is more dangerous] than it is actually racing."
He said it was daunting for young people getting behind the wheel for the first time.
"Obviously if you've got a tyre shake or something happens, hits a slippery patch or something like that, it's probably very daunting for them and probably pretty hard to have the experience to recover," he said.
"The only way you can get there — get better and quicker at what you're doing — is experience, and [this accident] is just a very unfortunate thing."
Topics: extreme-sports, kids-games-and-links, community-and-society, sport, motor-sports, perth-6000, wa
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