Road Racing More Dangerous Than Ovals?

In the early days of oval track racing it received a ton of criticism for being so dangerous it was unconscionable. Luminaries like Henry Ford and Frederic L. Smith (Oldsmobile leader) announced that they were withdrawing from oval track racing.
 
1The attached article from attachment Risk110808 was spurred by the running of the 1908 Vanderbilt Cup, always known for its crazy races without crowd control. This article posits that road racing was actually more dangerous than track (oval) racing because the nature of the two different courses. The road races stretched on for sometimes 20 miles or more while the horse track ovals were a mile or less. They were permanent facilities desgined for processing paying spectators and, most importantly, containing them.
 
Note that this article has what I viewed to be a major inaccuracy and that concerned the fatal accident to millionaire sportsman Frank Croker - the son of a New York Tammany Hall boss Richard Croker. Croker, as the article reports, was killed practicing for the Ormond Beach speed tournament in 1905, just a few months after his appearance in the first Vanderbilt Cup race. The article says he died averting errant spectators on the beach and that he was trapped under his flaming car to be burnt to death and beyond recognition. The reality is that Croker was extracted from the car alive and while obviously injured there was hope - in confidence - he would live. Medical technology what it was in the day his apparent internal injuries went undetected and he passed away the following day.
 
Bottom line, this was an interesting article in that it was a counter balance to the usual shots taken at horse track racing. There is evidence, however, that this view continued to proliferate as evidences by another article appearing in 1910.