Drivers concerned about safety at some racetracks

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).

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• Complete story, click here
• Video: Burton speaks out
• Video: Biffle weighs in
• Podcast: Hard crashes at LVMS

"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?"