NASCAR's Cup car proves it's safe

Greg Biffle celebrated at Pocono Raceway Sunday after snapping a 64-race winless streak.

Biffle’s No. 16 3M Ford performed precisely as it was engineered to do. The car carried Biffle to the finish line in dominant fashion — 3.598-seconds ahead of second place Tony Stewart.

Elliott Sadler finished 34th, but his car also performed as it was engineered to do. But in his case, Sadler escaped serious injury after a dramatic crash on the backstretch.

Once again, NASCAR’s new car was tested — and the drivers walked away.

On lap 164 of Sunday’s Pennsylvania 500 race, Jimmie Johnson slammed into the back of Kurt Busch’s car on the backstretch.

“I got wrecked on the straightaway,” Busch said after he left the infield care center. “Jimmie Johnson drove straight through us.”

Consequently, Busch’s accident triggered a chain reaction that led to “the hardest hit” Sadler ever took in a race car throughout his 15-year NASCAR career.

With scattered showers throughout the day, the cars slid uncontrollably through the wet grass. Sadler admitted, “I was just along for the ride.”

Tires flew off both cars, but the impact of Sadler’s crash knocked his engine, sway bar and whole left front wheel assembly completely out of the No. 19 Ford.

“I’m not sure what happened,” Sadler said after he was released from the infield care center. “I know some guys got spun out or moved around up in front of us, and I saw some smoke. Everybody started checking up and I checked up, but whoever was behind did not and ran in the back of us and knocked me down through the grass.

“I’m a little sore through my chest and my stomach, but that’s from where the seatbelts did their job and grabbed me and kept me in the car, so I’m thankful for that.”

Sadler was running 29th at the time of the wreck. His crew chief Todd Parrott wasn’t sure what ignited the incident but was relieved by the outcome.

“Somebody must have hit us and he slammed into that damn guard rail,” Parrott said. “The (car) obviously did its job. I walked out of the infield care center with a guy that probably four or five years ago wouldn’t have lived through that wreck right there.

“Hats off to NASCAR and everything they’ve done with the safety stuff since Dale Earnhardt’s tragedy. Elliott is a very lucky man from everything that I can see.”

NASCAR introduced the concept of the Car of Tomorrow in January of 2006. Teams began working on new model and the car first came into competition at Bristol Motor Speedway in March 2007. The car ran a limited schedule of 16 races in 2007 then went into full-time production in 2008.

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series director John Darby did not have time to study the cars following the race at the track. The No. 19 team loaded up the remains of the car, but Darby expects his officials and engineers to dissect the pieces back in North Carolina.

“It’s hard for me to go into much detail of the car because we haven’t looked at it,” Darby said. “Obviously the process will start when the car gets home. (We) will look at parts and pieces and see what worked and what didn’t work. You can already feel pretty good about the result, right, because of the driver’s condition?

“What we want to do now is take the time to understand the hit, to understand that things broke the way they were supposed to break and things crushed that were supposed to crash and everything that was engineered into the car did what they were supposed to do to keep the driver safe.”

Darby said that the engine falling out of the No. 19 Ford “was not the worst thing in the world,” adding that race cars and passenger cars are often designed to just that.

“You’d much rather have it break loose and get away from the car than to come through the firewall, for example, into the driver’s compartment,” Darby said. “The components that left the car, every time that happens, it’s taking energy away from the accident. That’s a good thing.

"What I know is at the end of the day when 43 drivers jump into their cars and head for home at the end of the day, it’s a good day whether we’ve had small crashes, big crashes or whatever. In the case of (Sadler), it was a pretty spectacular wreck back there."

Pocono Raceway did not have SAFER barriers where the accidents occurred. A release went out from the track prior to the June race announcing that after the recommendation from NASCAR and the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the inner guard rail of the facility would be replaced with the energy-absorbing barrier for 2011. A similar accident occurred on the backstretch in June after Kasey Kahne and AJ Allmendinger collided and the No. 9 Ford ricocheted off the wall back into traffic.

“We’re making the changes,” said Pocono Raceway president Brandon Igdalsky. “We announced in June we were making the changes and that’s all there is to it.

“We know it’s something that’s outdated for what it is and we’re stepping up and making the changes like we need to do.”

Darby acknowledges that making the necessary safety improvements is a costly process but reiterated that Pocono Raceway is committed to heeding NASCAR’s suggestions.

“We can’t ignore that this is a two-and-a-half mile racetrack and there’s a lot of SAFER barrier already here,” Darby said. “It’s not that the SAFER barrier was ignored here or anything else. But as racetracks evolve and they continue to improve, they continue to add barriers.

“On tracks that we go to, every year they all are evaluated. If we see a history or a frequency of accidents in a certain area, we’ll show and share that with the track operators and they’ll make the adjustments. Pocono is no different. They’re going forward with some major improvements to do everything they can to keep the drivers safe.”

Jeff Gordon was leading the race when the wreck erupted behind him. He’s witness his share of wrecks during his 18 seasons of racing at Pocono and feels “the incidents speak for themselves.”

“There are times where we’ve got to step-up the technology and safety and certain facilities,” Gordon said. “We’ve seen two incidents here this year. I think it is going to be a wake-up call for some improvements. It is a great track here at Pocono. We love coming here, but there are definitely some areas where it could be improved.”

Biffle believes that one area of concern is the patches of grass around the racetrack.

“It’s dangerous to have grass next to where you’re running 200 miles per hour,” Biffle said. “That’s all there is to it. It’s just the way it is, the way these racetracks have been built forever. It’s a great racetrack, it’s so much fun to driver but Talladega and Daytona had that same issue and they added pavement, like a skid pad, so when the car gets out of control, gets going in that direction you still have some control. Once you hit the grass, especially with it wet, you’re along for the ride. It feels like you pick up speed actually when you get into the wet grass.”

Certainly, Sadler was tender where his harness belts grabbed him and the motion “knocked the breath out” of him. Although Sadler’s day was ended, he’ll be back to race again.

“I’m fine,” Sadler said. “I’m a little sore, I think, from where the belts grabbed me. It knocked the breath out of me pretty good, but it’s definitely the hardest hit I’ve ever had in a race car. These new cars are built to be safer and if I can get out of that and walk through that, I think it did its job.”