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Following Tuesday's initial day
of testing for the Brickyard 400, NASCAR held a safety
meeting update for drivers, crew chiefs and team owners.
Ford Racing spoke to some of its drivers about the meeting
and their feelings on the SAFER barrier that is currently in
place at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
DALE JARRETT --88-- UPS Taurus -- THIS IS THE SECOND
STRAIGHT YEAR A SAFETY MEETING LIKE THIS HAS BEEN HELD. WHAT
DID YOU THINK ABOUT THIS ONE? "I think there's always
something for us to learn and it's not only interesting but
beneficial to everyone to know what and how much is going on
behind the scenes because normally we only hear bits and
pieces. To have these gentlemen actively looking for safer
ways for our sport to operate, it's nice. And for them to
enlighten us in speaking terms that we can understand is
also a big help because I'm sure a lot of the things they
work on are a lot more complicated than what most of us
could comprehend, but they put it to where we understand
what's going on. One of the things that was touched on was
soft walls. They talked about why the process takes longer.
You generally would think that putting something up there
that's softer has got to better, but that's not necessarily
the case. The information on the fire suits and the clothing
you wear under it was very interesting and I think there
were a lot of positives that came out of this meeting. I
think it's good that NASCAR has taken the initiative to say,
'OK, we're gonna take a little bit of your time just to help
you understand what's going on.'" WAS THERE SOMETHING THAT
MADE YOU RAISE YOUR EYEBROWS AND SAY, 'I DIDN'T REALIZE
THAT?' "I think I probably look at the soft wall situation.
They're looking for perfection and we should appreciate
that. After a car hits that at 145 or 150 miles an hour,
they want it to bounce back and be the same. They don't want
it to be hampered at all even for the rest of that race and
that was pretty amazing to me -- that they're gonna be able
to get to that. They've narrowed that margin so much in a
short period of time that they're gonna make that happen and
that was pretty incredible. I think the other thing was
looking at the fire suit situation. We kind of take for
granted what we have and there are better opportunities out
there. We can probably work within the same company we're
getting them made from, but that's not something you'd like
to test, so getting that information was helpful." WITH THE
FIRE SUIT IT'S ACTUALLY BETTER TO HAVE IT FITTING LOOSER
THAN TIGHTER, CORRECT? "Yeah. I found it very interesting
that the looser your uniform fit the better it was for you.
It makes sense after you hear it, but I would have never put
that together. You see these guys walking around trying to
show off the bodies they've sculpted in the gym, but you've
got to look at it a little differently now. I thought that
information was really helpful." WHAT ABOUT HAVING THE SAFER
BARRIER HERE AT INDIANAPOLIS? "I hope I don't have to test
it, first off, but I think it's great that we have them
here. This is a place, with our stock cars, that you're
running over 200 miles an hour down into these corners and
usually when we hit here, it's extremely hard with a big
impact. So I like the idea of what we have here. I think
NASCAR and everyone working in this area has done a good job
helping us get to this point. I know there is still a lot of
work to do so that it can be beneficial to us at other race
tracks, but it's nice to know that we're coming to a place
where it has been tested and I feel very comfortable with
what we have." SOME PEOPLE HAVE WONDERED WHY THIS SYSTEM
HASN'T BEEN APPROVED TO GO UP AT OTHER TRACKS ON THE
CIRCUIT. ARE YOU COMFORTABLE WITH THE PACE AT WHICH THIS IS
EVOLVING? "Yeah. I mean, we'd always like for it to be
quicker just like us here. We'd like to find something that
would make us a tenth of a second faster right off the bat,
but those things are hard to come by. Whenever you're really
fine-tuning, which is basically what they're doing right
now, you want to make sure that you don't create a bigger
hazard or more of an injury and you have to appreciate that.
You don't want a situation where the wall might throw the
car back into the racing groove and create a bigger
accident, or have something that is gonna be all over the
race track when an accident happens. You don't want them to
put it up there and say, 'Well, we think this will be
better.' You have to really commend NASCAR and everyone
working in this area for waiting until they have everything
exactly like they want it before we start it at other race
tracks for that very reason."
RICKY CRAVEN --32-- Tide Taurus -- WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS
ON THE SAFETY MEETING? "I actually went to dinner with Mike
(Beam) and Roy (McCauley) and we talked about it and all of
us mentioned how nice it is to have that open forum and that
continuation of discussion. It was very good because it
gives everybody a chance to meet and explore all of the
things going on right now in our sport from a safety
standpoint." WHAT DID YOU TAKE OUT OF THE MEETING? "I came
away from it knowing that they're exploring a lot of
different areas. They confirmed a lot of the things that
we've done. I think the PPI seat has touched on some of the
issues relating to the seats and how the head and shoulder
supports need to be tied together. I think that this seat
captures that in a wonderful way. The idea and the concept
of the seat having to be very, very strong and rigid as
opposed to the old way of thinking that maybe the seat
needed to give a little. I think we all know now that the
seat needs to be very, very strong and, again, we capture
that with this seat." THE SAFER BARRIER SYSTEM IS IN PLACE
HERE. HAVE YOU TAKEN A LOOK AT IT OR DO YOU NOTICE IT AT ALL
ON THE TRACK? "No, I haven't. Our objective yesterday was to
run each of the two Tide Fords and may the better car win.
We did that and we've got one car that we're going to focus
the entire day on today. That was a good meeting and I
enjoyed it, but today we're just putting all of our effort
into this car."
KURT BUSCH --97-- Rubbermaid Taurus -- ARE YOU COMFORTABLE
WITH EVERYTHING BEING DONE TO MAKE THIS KIND OF RACING SAFER
EVERY WEEK? "Oh, for sure. NASCAR has made the right steps
in hiring professionals in the business of safety. Whether
it's the mechanics of it, the fireproofing of it, the
barriers we're running into or the pieces that are on the
car, there are different percentages that we've taken that
takes away the blow as far as taking care of that egg in the
basket. I think NASCAR has done the right things. We've done
stuff to incorporate things inside the race car and we've
done things to incorporate things outside the race car now,
so it's just a matter of time before we're running into soft
walls instead of concrete walls." DO YOU HAVE MORE
CONFIDENCE KNOWING THE SAFER BARRIER IS HERE? "Yeah, Tony
George has always been an innovator of safety and in taking
care of the drivers out there on the race track. NASCAR
feels the same way and with the way everything has
progressed, it's gonna end up being the best of both worlds
for open wheel and stock car racing. Everybody is making the
right steps and it's just a matter of time before everything
is perfect." WHAT DID YOU TAKE OUT OF THE SAFETY MEETING
YESTERDAY? "Last year we sat down in the same meeting and
they briefed us on the Earnhardt tragedy and what they were
gonna do as far as the steps to take after that. They gave
us an outline last night of what has transpired over the
year. They've seen the progress everybody has made as far as
adjustments we've incorporated into the car, and now they're
taking us to the next level of understanding the crash
barriers that we're running into. The plan is to just keep
going to that next level." ARE YOU COMFORTABLE WITH THE
PROCESS GOING ON AS FAR AS SOFT WALLS AND SAFETY IN GENERAL?
"It's a process of evolution. You can't just strap it down
and hope to go race with it, whether you have a problem with
it or not, so things have to be proven. It's just like when
we come here to do a test -- you have to put a spring in to
know exactly what it does. We know what it says on it, we
know what it looks like, we know what color it is, but we've
got to test it and understand it and it takes time to do
that. So it's not just gonna happen overnight and the things
that they've done, I think, have been in a process where we
can all understand and the way things have stepped forward
is adequate as far as the time." DO YOU LIKE MEETINGS LIKE
THAT? "For sure. It really gets everybody informed and keeps
everybody on the same page. If there are any questions out
there, they get answered up front. I like that because then
nobody has any questions behind the scenes."
--FORD--
The author can be contacted nascar@autoracing1.com
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