Newman questions safety response, NASCAR answers

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. -- More than 24 hours after he sat in his upended car for more than a minute awaiting track workers outside Watkins Glen International's Turn 5, Ryan Newman was still adamant that something needs to be done about safety response in Winston Cup racing.

	Ryan Newman Credit: Autostock

"My heart was beating fast -- I said it how it was," Newman said. "The crash itself was very, very minor. I just got up in the foam, and the way it caught the car it flipped it up on its side. If it hadn't flipped it up on its side I could have drove the car back to the pits.

"The response time is something that needed to be fixed, and I'll be vocal about it because it's my butt that's sitting in that race car -- I have a reason to."

Newman spoke at a media briefing Saturday morning, reiterating comments he made Friday after he crashed his No. 12 Dodge in pre-qualifying practice. A short time later, Winston Cup director John Darby responded to Newman's concerns.

"Our safety concerns we never sleep on," Darby said. "Any incident on the racetrack, including the one yesterday, if it took 30 seconds to respond, then immediately after that incident the team that's responsible is trying to figure out how to do it in 20 seconds."

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Timing was Newman's primary concern. He cited a crewman's timing of the accident and its aftermath.

"One of our guys had a stopwatch and he was doing split times," Newman said. "By the time I got out of that car, he had a minute, forty (seconds, on his watch). That's neglecting some time before that when he had already started somebody else's split times (so) I was at least in the car for over a minute."

"It's something we never sit still on," Darby said. "If we didn't do it 100 percent right, we'll find out why and the next time we'll make sure we do."

Darby said he personally was not aware how much time it took from the impact of Newman's car into the barrier and the arrival of the safety vehicles.

The vehicles responded from a station that was at the exit of the Inner Loop, the track section right in front of where Newman crashed that's little more than 200 yards away.

	John Darby

"I'm sure we've got that information," Darby said, referring to TV camera coverage of the event, "Every event is unique, just as every facility is different.

"A three-quarter-mile closed oval, for example, is a lot easier just because you're traveling a lot less distance (to respond). Road courses present a lot of other challenges that we've got to work through to get it done."

NASCAR, while without a traveling safety crew, has established an accident investigation and reconstruction team that is based at its research and development center in Concord, N.C. Darby did not reference a full-time traveling safety crew in his remarks.

"Everybody's got an opinion and everyone's got the ability to watch the same thing that we watch," Darby said. "Our goal is to be as perfect as we can be in all incidents, regardless of where they are and how they happen.

"That's why we have the group that we do that studies each one, so we can do it better the next time."

Newman hopes that improves response time, and even more important, communication.

"Once the team got there, they didn't have a clue what to do -- I'm laying in the car, not knowing if fuel is spilling out of it," Newman said. "They asked me if the power was off -- I'm trying to tell them they need to hold the car so I can get out.

	Newman said the crash itself was very minor. Credit: Autostock

"Communication was not there, and it needs to be there. I'm not trying to shoot down the safety crew. I just want it to be so we can communicate better and they can understand what they're doing.

"If there's not going to be a team that travels with NASCAR, then there needs to be better communication with the teams that are at the specific racetracks. That's all I'm saying."

Darby said the track's safety vehicles never move until they are dispatched by the NASCAR control tower.

"We know that if we pull an emergency vehicle out in front of a race car that's traveling 180 miles an hour, we're going to have a bigger problem than we started with," Darby said. "There's a lot of things that play into moving equipment, and when and how it's moved."

Newman said that, particularly in practice mode, NASCAR needs to do a better job.

"We're dealing with the cars and gentlemen's agreement and all that kind of stuff racing back to the yellow flag," Newman said, "(but) if there was an instance in practice like this if NASCAR could come over the radio and say 'there's a car upside down, everybody stop on the racetrack,' that could disperse the ambulance right away -- there's no delay.

"There's no reason why when we have practice like that and we're not under race conditions that we all can't just stop on the racetrack and the ambulance gets out there right away. It can be done and implemented if it makes sense for everybody."