Daytona crash has Roush Fenway Racing's Greg Biffle concerned about safety
Roush Fenway Racing's Greg Biffle remains winless this season in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. // Sam Cranston, NASCAR Scene
JOLIET, Ill. – Despite NASCAR’s efforts to promote safety on the track, Sprint Cup driver Greg Biffle worries that a driver could still be seriously injured if his car is hit multiple times in a crash.
Last weekend at Daytona, Kyle Busch’s No. 18 Toyota hit the wall and was struck by several cars on the final lap before coming to rest at the finish line.
Busch walked away uninjured, but Biffle fears that not every driver might be so lucky in the future. Concerns about safety are always heightened at Daytona and Talladega – NASCAR’s two restrictor-plate tracks – because of the high speeds and close-quarters racing that can breed major accidents.
There’s also the issue of blocking, which happened last week when Busch moved up the track in an attempt to keep Tony Stewart from passing and was turned head-on into the wall.
“I can tell you one thing: You can get hurt in these cars,” Biffle said at Chicagoland Speedway, site of Saturday’s LifeLock.com 400. “It hurts when you crash at 175 miles an hour. I think there are some guys pushing that envelope thinking that somebody is going to give. They’re playing chicken. When one guy is moving over to block, you’ve got three choices: One, let up on the gas. Two, move over and let him run you up the race track, or, three, spin him out. Guys are testing that to see what the guy is going to do.
“When you can see the checkered flag from here to there, it’s tough to just roll over and play dead, but at the same time, you don’t want to get turned around on the frontstretch in front of the whole field. But you can get hurt in these cars, and it does hurt when you crash in these things.”
The last NASCAR Cup driver to be fatally injured in a crash was Dale Earnhardt, who died from injuries suffered on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. Three other NASCAR drivers – Kenny Irwin (Cup), Adam Petty (what is now the Nationwide Series) and Tony Roper (Truck) died in crashes in 2000.
But since Earnhardt’s death, NASCAR has put considerable emphasis on driver safety. The most notable measures have been the addition of a HANS (Head-and-Neck Support) device that drivers are required to wear, SAFER barriers at individual tracks and NASCAR’s bulkier new model Cup car, which is widely considered safer than its predecessor.
But even with those improvements, Biffle believes drivers could still get hurt – especially in accident such as Busch’s at Daytona.
“The thing that concerns me is just the safety aspect of the cars getting slowed down enough after there’s a crash like that,” Biffle said. “He got hit multiple times. Some thought of mine was, ‘Are people slowing down or are they trying to still race to the line to get their finishing position?’ I’ve got a concern with that because he got hit by the 9 [car of Kasey Kahne] and then got hit by other cars. He got hit by a car that was behind me on the race track pretty hard, which tells me that maybe that guy wasn’t slowing down as quick as he could have been. So that’s one concern.”
Biffle says that drivers can do a better job of slowing down when they see a wreck ahead – even if it’s the last lap. This is another area where NASCAR changed its rules a few years ago to promote safety, mandating that drivers can no longer race back to the line when the caution flag waves. Of course, when it’s the last lap, drivers still might not be prone to slow down fast enough.
“When we have these wrecks at the end of the race, how quickly does the caution come out and are we racing back the line?” Biffle said. “Mark Martin and Kevin Harvick raced all the way back [to the line at Daytona in 2007] when the third-and fourth-place cars wrecked. ...
“So that’s probably my biggest concern is safety – a guy getting hit two or three or four or five times. And, of course, staying out of the fence was the key this time.”
