V8 Supercars bosses to look at car safety
He left open the possibility of a radical revamp of car design to make them safer through a purpose-built design rather than the current method of using production-based cars. American racing series NASCAR has introduced a purpose-built racing machine this year to help improve its safety. Cattach said a similar solution could be looked at. But he warned any change would involve heavy financial costs.
"I guess it's really the cost of making that rather massive change," Cattach said yesterday.
"If there was supporting evidence to do that, then I guess we would do it. At this stage there is nothing on the drawing board to affect that. Certainly we wanted to keep the cars in a form that gave our manufacturers the chance to market cars from them.
"In other words, not go down the NASCAR route, but have them as a silhouette of the road cars and have them have swinging panels and so on and so forth.
"That would be a very big exercise, to start with a clean sheet of paper, (but) it might be something that we need to consider.
"Certainly if we are in any way unsure about the strength and safety of our cars, well, that might be one option.
"But at this stage I wouldn't draw that conclusion. I think the cars have, by and large, protected the drivers well.
"If you look at some of the colossal crashes we've had over time with very little injury, I think that's a testament to the strength of the cars."
Cooper, 27, suffered massive head and internal injuries when his Holden Commodore slammed into the barriers at the fast Turn Eight corner on the Adelaide street circuit on Saturday.