DRAG RACERS CALL FOR SAFER BARRIERS
“I do think we need to institute some type of SAFER system,” Cory Mac said during a visit to Bristol Motor Speedway on the morning of the Food City 500. “I don’t think we would need them all the way down the track. We could do it from about half track.”
“I do think we need to institute some type of SAFER system,” Cory Mac said during a visit to Bristol Motor Speedway on the morning of the Food City 500. “I don’t think we would need them all the way down the track. We could do it from about half track.”
J R Todd agreed with Cory, adding, “I think we could carry the barriers down through the run off area. Those are the areas, half track and beyond when problems could arise which might be reduced by a SAFER wall.”
NASCAR officials, using a test facility at the University of Nebraska, in Lincoln, tested their version of the SAFER wall at a top speed of 156 mph. “We started 80 mph and worked our way upwards. Frankly, anything faster and the car is so destroyed there is much left from which to extract data.”
The IRL tested a vehicle at the same facility at a top speed of 167 mph.
One NASCAR official felt the walls might have an application in the NHRA, specially in instances where the car makes a hard right or left turn into the concrete wall.
“We don’t use the SAFER on most straights because on the straights a car typically hits in the wall in a glancing parallel blow, not head on.”
