Busch feeling good about HANS, but not the COT

RICHMOND, Va. -- When the HANS device that was designed to keep his head immobilized during an accident suffered a malfunction as unexpected as the wreck itself, driver Kyle Busch literally took matters into his own hands during last Saturday's Busch Series race at Talladega Superspeedway.

"I cracked my visor and grabbed ahold of where the visor comes down right around the chin strap, so my fingers were inside, my palms out," Busch said.

"It was spur of the moment. I wanted to grab ahold of my head ... There was nothing to grip, so I had to crack my visor in order to get my fingers in there."

About that time, Busch went upside down on a wild ride (watch video) that included several barrel rolls before he finally ended upright, his car smoking and in multiple broken pieces. Busch said that it all seemed to be happening in slow motion in his mind's eye, and he wondered when it was all going to end -- and how it was going to come to an end.

His worst fears were not realized. He walked away and ended up with only widespread soreness in the way of injuries.

"I was a little sore Sunday getting back in the car [for the Nextel Cup race], but on Monday I was back at the gym just as normal," he said.

After the fact, and upon further review of the wild wreck, that seemed like something of a miracle.

"When I was sliding upside down on my roof, I was like, 'I don't know when this thing is going to stop, but I hope it stops before it wears through the roll bars,'" Busch said Friday, as he prepared for Saturday's Nextel Cup race at Richmond International Raceway. "It was a rough ride. ... Even holding on as much as you could, you still got bounced around and tossed around. It went along a lot faster on the video than it did in real life."

Busch said that he is convinced that his HANS device did its job during his horrific tumble through the grass and down the track at Talladega. He also said that NASCAR took the HANS device from his Hendrick Motorsports team after the race and sent it back to the manufacturer to investigate what might have went wrong with it.

"That's all I know. I didn't see it. I don't know what the crack [on it] looks like. I don't know where the crack was," he said. "But I've got full faith in them things because they've saved how many lives already?

"I'll keep wearing it, of course. It's mandated, but even if it wasn't I would keep wearing it anyway."

Busch said his bigger concern heading into the Richmond race is getting a handle on the Car of Tomorrow. Since winning the first COT race in NASCAR history at Bristol on March 25, when Busch was nonetheless highly critical of it, he has struggled to keep pace with Hendrick teammates Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson in COT events, such as the one to be run at Richmond.

He said that Gordon's success in the COT appears to be because the new car fits Gordon's driving style more than his own.

"He likes to use more brake getting into the corner, slowing the car down more initially, slowing the center up a little bit, getting the car turned -- and then just hammering the gas to drive up off the corner straighter better," Busch said.

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"For me, I tend to let the car try to free-wheel and roll faster through the corner, and just finesse it more up off the corner. But these things don't like to turn, so you're waiting on it further along through the corner instead of just being able to get back to the gas like Jeff does."

Busch was not pleased that his No. 5 Chevrolet was much slower than his Hendrick teammates in Happy Hour on Friday. But he said he was not surprised, either. While Johnson was fifth-fastest among the 50 cars that participated and Gordon was 15th, Busch was 34th.

"I don't have it. Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson seem to have it. They've got it figured out pretty well," he said. "We're never very pleased with our car in practice. But when the race comes around, we seem to move our way forward."

He just doesn't want to move forward this week upside down, or without a HANS device staying completely intact and in place. And he knows that last week could have ended up being much, much worse.

"I just prepared for the worst [as it was happening]," he said. "I was actually preparing for guys just hitting me. Luckily everybody was on top of their game and they made some evasive moves to get away from me and not hit me and spin me like a top."

When it was finally over, he wasn't even sure it was over, at first.

"That's why it took me longer to get out of the car than it probably should have," he said. "I had my eyes closed, so I wasn't watching what was going on. So when it was over, I wasn't sure if it was. I kind of cracked my eye open and said, 'OK, the world is right-side up again and there's a fire, so let's go ahead and get out.'"

NASCAR downplays cracks in HANS devices

NASCAR is downplaying the cracks found in Kyle Busch and Casey Mears' HANS devices after wrecks at Talladega Superspeedway.

Busch's head-and-neck restraint was cracked in a spectacular crash Saturday, and NASCAR officials inspected the HANS before sending it back to the manufacturer for a review.

Then came word Friday that Casey Mears' device also cracked when he hit the wall hard on Sunday. Initially unaware of that crack, NASCAR has since taken possession of the HANS and also is sending it back.

Mears said the crack in his HANS was in the center and appeared as if the left strap had been tugged too hard.

"In a hit like that it probably should have [cracked]," he said. "It didn't crack hard enough where it wouldn't have done its job. It just cracked enough where you wouldn't feel good about using it again."

Jeff Burton, one of the top safety advocates in the garage, said everyone should be concerned about the devices cracking.

"We need to depend on all of our safety devices," he said. "If it was cracked, that's something the manufacturer has to look at and try to make better."

But other drivers downplayed it, saying the cracks in the many layers of coating on the HANS are more common than anyone realizes. Jimmie Johnson said his HANS cracked in a hard hit at Indianapolis several years ago.

"It's actually something that happens more often than you hear about," Jeff Gordon said. "We analyze those things every time we go through a wreck, and they have cracked while doing their job. Until one cracks and breaks and doesn't do their job, I don't think any of us are concerned."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.