Before last Saturday's Xfinity Series race, the lap 256 crash that happened among Denny Hamlin, Jamie McMurray, Jeff Gordon and Ryan Newman at Atlanta on Sunday would be just another crash. But now that we're in a post-Kyle Busch broken-bones world, it'll hopefully be yet another catalyst for change.
After Hamlin got loose coming off turn two, he collected McMurray and Newman. McMurray's car spun into Gordon's and both of their cars slammed into walls that weren't covered with protective SAFER barrier, the same type of bare concrete walls that Busch's car slammed into at Daytona, breaking his right leg and his left foot.
"Wouldn't have been too bad except I found that one spot where there's no SAFER barrier," Gordon said. "I can't believe it, that's amazing to me. Anyway, hopefully soon that will get fixed."
All of the drivers involved in the crash were uninjured.
After Busch's crash at Daytona, Atlanta announced that it would add protective tire barriers onto the inside wall of turn four. Gordon hit the inside wall entering turn three, mere feet after SAFER barrier on the inside of the backstretch wall ended.
And he didn't find the only spot without SAFER barriers, either. The entire backstretch outside wall is not covered and it it wasn't for Gordon's car serving as a roadblock, McMurray was heading for a major impact with the unprotected backstretch wall.
Given the changes Daytona set in motion with its announcement of safety improvements following Busch's crash, Atlanta Motor Speedway was scrambling to react with less than a week until its race weekend began. And while it's fair to criticize the track for not having the bare inside walls more protected than it did, there's nothing it could have done for the outside wall for Sunday's race.
However, there's definitely things that can be done in preparation for 2016. And there's things that will be done, as, ideally, NASCAR makes SAFER mandatory at every inch of wall possible in anticipation of the coming season. Sunday's crash was just another example that it's not in enough places right now.
- - - - - - -
Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
from Yahoo Sports http://ift.tt/1AZ2WPw
0 commentaires:
Enregistrer un commentaire