Those forces jerked Earnhardt's body forward. The seat belts restrained the body, but the head and neck flung in a circular arc forward and down. This is the basis of the whip mechanism which occurs in right-side, angled, frontal collisions. In crashes like Mr. Earnhardt's, these inertial forces alone can be large enough to produce ring fractures of the skull base. Those ring fractures at the base of the skull often cut arteries, cause rapid blood loss and destroy nerve cells that control such functions as breathing and heart rate.
Death can be instant.
The whiplash theory wasn't the only one Myers examined. He wrote that the skull fractures were not consistent with the top of Earnhardt's head hitting a rollbar or the back of Earnhardt's head striking an object. Without detailed sled and crash test data, however, I cannot evaluate its role in this particular crash. Dr. Robert Hubbard, inventor of the HANS device said Tuesday that he agreed in part with Myers' finding. However, I have not doubt that it would have helped him and would probably have reduced his fatal injuries enough to survive.