Ouch that had to hurt...too bad for Jeff...thought he had a chance...good run...just slipped up to close to Matt...at least he apologized for it. I think it was just a racing accident...he barely tapped Matt...but we've seen it happen like this many times before...it doesn't take very much...I still don't like these new cars...I'm glad that Jeff is ok...boy was that a hard hit...I think he said that was one of his hardest hits he has taken... well just keep on trying... Jeff maybe next week...Congrats to Carl. and a good finish for Dale Jr.

I agree that was a pretty hard hit.

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I hate to make light of that crash but it brings to mind the song I Love NASCAR and the line in it "watching Jeff Gordon plow up a wall puts a smile on Dale Jr's face" b/c if that hadn't happend Jr would have been about 5th

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"It's all fun and games until somebody wrecks a racecar" Larry McRenyolds


Will race for nothing just give me a car

By Bruce Martin PA SportsTicker Contributing Editor

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (Ticker) After taking one of the hardest hits of his career, four-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Jeff Gordon believes the SAFER Barrier needs to be placed on both outside and inside walls at all NASCAR facilities.

Gordon was involved in a massive crash with five laps to go after his car slid up the second turn and barely touched Matt Kenseth’s Ford. That sent both cars sliding before Gordon’s car shot across the race track and slammed hard into the infield wall.

Gordon’s Chevrolet hit the abutment of the opening for a service road that gets safety vehicles onto the track.

The impact was so severe it ripped the radiator off his car and sent it flying across the track.

Despite the vicious crash, Gordon was uninjured.

“I’m okay but I’m going to be really sore tomorrow,” Gordon said. “It was a really, really hard hit. It took me a while to be able to catch my breath and to get out. I looked down and I saw where the transmission was and it was no longer there.

“That’s probably the hardest I’ve ever hit and you it was my fault. I couldn’t have hit the wall at a worse angle. It really tore the thing up. I’m really disappointed right now in this speedway for not having a soft wall back there. And even being able to get to that part of the wall shouldn’t happen. I would love to talk to them. I tell you what, that kind of hit shouldn’t happen. There is no reason why any track we go to should have that. I could have been really hurt bad, and fortunately it turned out okay.” Gordon admitted he pushed the issue on the late-race restart when he tried get past Kenseth’s Ford in a battle for second place with five laps left in the race.

“Well, it was a little bit my fault,” Gordon said. “I didn’t want to be on the inside there. My car was really too tight. I wanted to get a run on the outside. But when (Matt) Kenseth and (Dale Earnhardt) Junior got side-by-side, I had the momentum. I went to the inside and I got down to the bottom and thought it was going to stick. I got in the gas and I drifted up into Matt and hated that that happened.

“But I’ve got two things to say: Bruton (Smith, owner and founder of Speedway Motorsports Inc.), you need a soft wall and to change the wall back there on the back straightaway. Thankfully Hendrick Motorsports and everyone with this Chevrolet build an unbelievable race car because that’s the hardest I’ve ever hit.”

Greg Biffle saw the crash unfold and was asked if he thinks there should be any gaps on the race track that aren’t protected by the SAFER Barrier.

“There shouldn’t be any gaps anywhere,” Biffle said. “There should be SAFER barriers all the way around the inside and the outside of these race tracks. You’ve got to remember, if you look at the percentage of crashes that happen on the inside wall versus the outside wall, they’re pretty danged close, so why not have them on the inside?

“They need to run the one wall way past the other wall parallel with about a 12-foot alley way, where you can come out of so that the walls are both flat. They always stop this wall and then make this wall come out so it has a 90-degree you can hit the thing head on. If I’m coming at a 30-degree angle off the track, you can run into the wall head-on, and they need to fix that.”

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Ryan Newman, Daytona 500 Champion!!
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Drivers concerned about safety at some racetracks
Gordon's scary crash at Las Vegas gets dialogue started
By Mark Aumann, NASCAR.COM
March 7, 2008
05:38 PM EST

HAMPTON, Ga. -- One week after Jeff Gordon's harrowing hit at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, safety continued to be on the minds of Sprint Cup drivers.

Gordon walked away but his car was totaled when it hit an unprotected section of the inside concrete wall, which juts out at an unusual angle because of the location of the safety vehicles (watch video).
Autostock
Stay in shape

Jeff Gordon's violent crash at Las Vegas shook up everyone, and it made Raygan Swan realize that drivers need to focus on their physical health as much as they do on their cars.

"Without mincing words, last week's incident and how Jeff hit the wall -- in a word -- was inexcusable," Jeff Burton said Friday morning before practice for Sunday's Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. "I will give, and the racetracks deserve, a tremendous amount of credit for the investment they've put in to the development of and the installation of the SAFER barriers. They have looked very hard at making things safer for the fans, for the drivers, for pit crew members. There has been a tremendous effort to make things better.

"The thing that I've been saying for seven years is that we can never be as safe as we can be. If we ever get to the point where we quit looking to be better, we're going to quit being better. And the wall last week is a good example of that."

Greg Biffle agreed.

"We need to take that and make an example of it," Biffle said. "Even though he wasn't hurt in that accident, thank God, we should take that as seriously as [Dale Earnhardt's accident in 2001] and say, 'What can we do to ratchet our safety stuff up even more?' What else can we do to possibly make these racetracks even safer?"

Burton said this is no time to point fingers. Instead, everyone should come together to look for potential problems.

"We know that a wall that's shaped like that is wrong," Burton said. "But yet it was still there. NASCAR and the tracks have rigorously looked at things to make them better. And the drivers and the teams have, too.

"That's an example of all of us dropping the ball. We, as drivers, need to be willing to look at the walls and say, 'That's potentially a problem.' The racetracks need to do it and NASCAR needs to do it."

Burton said other tracks have similar safety concerns.

"I can't tell you if there's a wall here at Atlanta that's wrong," Burton said. "One doesn't jump out. But I haven't looked. That's my fault.

"There are places that need work. The back straightaway at [Lowe's], the infield wall needs work. Pocono is inexcusable with guardrails ... and also grass on the back straightaway. That's been like that for years. Pocono has to step up and fix that."

There are two problems, according to Biffle.

"The first issue is SAFER barriers," Biffle said. "SAFER barriers need to be everywhere, inside and outside of the racetracks we go to, I don't care what size it is. Secondly, we've got to fix the openings where the safety trucks came out of around the racetrack.

"It's just where the wall turns, comes back out and lines up. It's a necessary evil because you've got to have safety equipment to get out to the drivers quickly. But we've got to figure a way to get them out on the racetrack without having that flat spot in the wall."

Kurt Busch would like to see research done to find out the best spots to place safety vehicles.

"Should we have all the racetrack evaluated again as to where they stand with soft-wall technology in the inside as well as the outside? Yes," Busch said. "There's enough technology out there to find out where cars impact the inside fence, and if there's an area to where there's zero to 10 percent impact, that's where those openings need to be moved to."

Burton said safety needs to always remain at the forefront.

"Again, I'm not blaming that wall on NASCAR, I'm not blaming it on Las Vegas Motor Speedway, I'm not blaming it on the drivers," Burton said. "I blame it on all of us. We, all three, dropped the ball.

"I know some people will disagree with that, some people will say the drivers shouldn't have to worry about it. And I guess in a perfect world, that's the case. But if we're not going to take interest in our own safety, then why should we expect anyone else to take interest as well?"

The End

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