By JOHN MARSHALL
AP Sports Writer
AVONDALE, Ariz. (AP) - NASCAR will look at the
placement of gates at its tracks after a Nationwide Series car crashed
through the fence at Daytona and injured more than two dozen fans.
The fans were injured during the 12-car crash last
Saturday when pieces of rookie Kyle Larson's car ripped through the
fence, including a section where a gate connects the grandstand and the
track.
"I think because of where it came through and
having pieces that did get through and it being a gate area, that's
really going to be the focus for us to look at," Steve O'Donnell,
NASCAR's Senior Vice President, Racing Operations said Saturday from
Phoenix International Raceway. "We're certainly going to look at fencing
in general, but I think that particular area, that it was a gate, did
impact it. We know the gate was locked, but does that provide as much
stability as the rest of the fencing we believed it did? We've now got
to look at that impact."
The crash occurred on the final lap of the
Nationwide race the day before the Daytona 500, when leader Regan Smith
tried to block Brad Keselowski and triggered a chain reaction. Larson's
car went airborne during the wreck and slammed into the fence, sending
debris into the stands.
O'Donnell said two injured fans remain at the hospital, but everyone else has been released.
The crash has forced NASCAR to take a closer look at its safety measures, particularly fencing around its tracks.
O'Donnell said NASCAR mostly leaves fencing up to
the individual tracks, but may look at being more involved, similar to
what it did requiring impact-absorbing SAFER barriers along concrete
walls.
"It's important to note that most of the safety
elements in that car did their job," O'Donnell said. "The driver, as you
saw, walked away. However, the car then got up into the fence. Our
focus is going to be if the elements in the car did their job, now what
do we need to do in looking at the impact of the fence, what happened
when that car impacted the fence with parts getting away."
O'Donnell also said that the tethers that hold
Larson's car together worked, but that the section the tethers were
attached to sheared the car, sending pieces flying.
"We've tethered a number of different things as
we've learned and added safety aspects to the car, but what do we need
to do in addition to that when we look at this aspect specifically?"
O'Donnell said. "
Instead of bringing Larson's car immediately back
to NASCAR's research and development center in Charlotte, N.C., it was
left in Daytona so track officials use it in their investigation into
what happened with the fencing. The car is in the process of being
brought back to the R&D center, where it will be put back together
and, with the help of video, hopefully determine what parts of the car
came off when.
O'Donnell said NASCAR will bring in Larson's race
team, which hasn't seen the car since it was impounded after the wreck,
to talk about how the car was constructed and fabricated.
NASCAR also will bring in outside experts,
including Dr. Dean Sicking, director of the Midwest Roadside Safety
Facility at the University of Nebraska, officials from Indianapolis
Motor Speedway and outside engineers to look at the fencing.
Daytona will have its experts work with an outside firm to analyze what was in place and analyze what may need to be done.
"When you talk about safety, I think Jeff Burton
said it best: There's no end goal of safety, it's something we work on
each and every day," O'Donnell said. "Same with this process. If there's
something we can learn today, we'll apply that. If it's two months from
now, we'll apply it as well.
O'Donnell said NASCAR will look at the issue of
restrictor-plate racing at Daytona and Talladega, where the series stops
in May, but he said he's comfortable with plate racing at the two
superspeedways right now.
