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A guest on the Feb. 13 edition of
Speed Week on Speed Channel, NASCAR President Mike Helton
discussed the issue of safety as NASCAR Winston Cup Series
teams prepare for this weekend’s Daytona 500. The following
are excerpts from that discussion:
“I think the most important issue around safety is the speed
in which we’ve now started reacting to things … everybody in
this industry is focused on safety. NASCAR has stepped up its
responsibility in the sport to pull all those synergies
together and find answers and get results and qualify
everything. And from that process since last February, the
cockpit that the driver sits in and the parts and pieces he
uses -- all of that has improved immensely.”
“… in August when we announced the findings from Dale’s
accident, we announced things that we were going to do
operationally, including the hiring of medical liaisons, the
use of data recorders on the car, hiring a safety analyst --
and all that is real today. The cars here in Daytona this week
during Speedweeks all have data recorders on them, we have
medical liaisons moving through the garage area, the safety
analyst is working and we have all that in place and we’re
proud of that.”
“… as the development of and the certainties around the head
and neck restraints became apparent, we mandated those in
October. During the winter, we approved the composite seat
that competitors can start using as we’ve learned the
importance of that whole cocoon that Michael (Waltrip) spoke
of last February and all the intricacies of all the parts of
pieces that fit in that.
“As an example of our modern day reaction to things, when
the accident occurred in Homestead (in Nov. 2001) with the
crew members of the 28 car, we announced that at the beginning
of 2002, that everyone over the wall from the crew
perspective, as well as our own officials, would be wearing
fire suits and helmets, and that’s all been coming about
today. Also during the process, we moved the starting ages in
out tours and divisions across the country to 18 years old
from the old 16 years old just to give them more chance to be
more mature and get more experience and be ready.”
The
author can be contacted nascar@autoracing1.com
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