Imagine yourself crouching a few feet behind a roaring Boeing 737 at takeoff. Or firing up a chain saw to cut down a mighty tree. Or listening to a raging thunderstorm for hours.
That's roughly what race fans contend with, on a decibel level, at the Indianapolis 500.
The sounds of the famous race will echo around Indianapolis next weekend, and hearing experts again are warning spectators, race workers and neighbors to protect their ears.
Not that casual fans will pay much attention to the warnings. Year in and year out, thousands of fans attend the race without ear muffs, earplugs or other protection.
The sound of a race car can reach 128 decibels, or the equivalent of a thunderclap or a chain saw. A race in full swing can reach about 140 decibels, roughly the same level as recorded on the deck of an aircraft carrier.
"It's like an eight-hour workday in a factory, all packed into three hours," said Dawn Flinn, an audiologist who consults with drivers and their crews in the Izod IndyCar Series.
Noises above 85 decibels (a food blender or a garbage disposal) can hurt your ears after 10 or 15 minutes, and you should use ear protection to avoid damage, according to the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health.
"Anytime someone exposes their ears to intense sounds, like motor sports, it can be extremely dangerous," said Ross Roeser, founder and longtime executive director of the Callier Hearing and Speech Center at the University of Texas in Dallas. "If you do it enough, over time, your hearing is not going to come back."
So how do drivers cope with the noise? For one, their engines are behind them, so they are moving in the opposite direction of the noise. And they wear multiple levels of ear protection to stay in radio contact with their crews.
Years ago it was noisier to drivers, and many suffered hearing loss. Bobby Unser, a three-time Indy 500 winner, said he used old-fashioned earphones in his helmet, with the volume up high, to hear his race crew. "That was really bad and really dumb," he said. "It made me half deaf."
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