DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — The gleaming structure that now flanks the frontstretch at Daytona International Speedway has re-established rightful prominence to one of NASCAR’s most historic tracks. But the price tag on prestige also includes another measure of improvement — the always-moving target in the realm of safety.
The Daytona Rising project opened in earnest for February’s annual Speedweeks with high-rise seating, “injector” entrances and sprawling concourses. But after a pair of harrowing crashes in its two races last season, it also made sure to make enhancements to the other side of the catchfence — the track itself. And there’s still more to be done.
“Daytona has its own challenges, but there’s a fix for everything,” said Ryan Newman, one of the sport’s most outspoken drivers when it comes to safety. “It’s just a matter of spending time, money and effort to do it right.”
Kyle Busch‘s severe crash here in the NASCAR XFINITY Series opener last February was the fulcrum to many of the changes. Busch’s car skidded off the short chute toward Turn 1, slid across the grass and made hard, nose-first contact with a wall unprotected by the impact-absorbing SAFER (Steel and Foam Energy Reduction) barrier system. The impact forced Busch out for 11 races with multiple leg injuries.
When NASCAR returned in July, teams were greeted with additional SAFER barriers and more than 200,000 square feet of new asphalt to replace the grass in certain places around the 2.5-mile track, including the site of Busch’s crash. Though multiple areas were addressed, Austin Dillon‘s violent wreck into the frontstretch catch fencing again raised safety’s specter.
The topic of grass came into renewed focus during last weekend’s Sprint Unlimited preliminary. Jimmie Johnson‘s No. 48 Chevrolet spun off the racing surface on the backstretch, sustaining severe front-end damage when the car’s nose dug into the earth at high speed. Three days later at NASCAR Media Day, Johnson sounded the bell again for more pavement: “My opinion, grass belongs on golf courses. We need asphalt around here to slow the cars down, control the cars.”
Daytona track president Joie Chitwood III said his facility has acted quickly to make further strides with additional SAFER and paving, but that the movement was spread among all 12 of International Speedway Corporation’s host tracks. In Daytona’s case, Chitwood noted there’s a more delicate fine line in doing what’s right for the various series — four-wheeled and two — that visit.
“Daytona is operated about 250 days a year, so we do have other forms of racing out here,” Chitwood said, “and so we have to make sure that we provide everyone a good racing opportunity, whether it’s sports cars, whether it’s motorcycles — yes, there’s other things. Right now, that balancing act of the right kind of safety — whether it’s grass, SAFER barrier and how it fits with everything we do — so we just have to balance all those things.”
Newman also suggested a retaining wall on the outside of pit road be added to every track that hosts NASCAR’s premier series. Of the 23 tracks on the Sprint Cup schedule, eight do not have a wall separating the pit lane from the infield grass.
Chitwood said providing extra protection on pit road would be ideal, but that the introduction of an exterior pit wall creates an extra element of danger with an abutment at pit entry. Tracks that do have the additional barrier protect them with large, impact-absorbing barrels filled with water or sand.
“There’s a lot of challenges with that, and we’ve seen a lot of other tracks need to put an attenuator at the end of pit wall. If you do that, you create a hard point out there,” Chitwood said. “I think there’s a lot of conversation about that, and that’s where you get a lot of safety engineers and people like that that can assist with that. There’s some tracks with a wall that separates the track from pit lane. There’s a lot without, so I think that’s a good debate for a lot of knowledgeable people about safety right now. I think he has a valid point, but I think there’s both sides to that.”
Though safety enhancements remain an evolving focus, Chitwood’s attention for now — with the Daytona 500 just days away — remains on buttoning down the final 2 percent of work to be done. After overseeing the motorsports stadium’s groundbreaking as a $400 million concept in July 2013 to its reality at 98 percent completion today, Chitwood has many reasons to savor the occasion.
“I think we’re having a tough time not focusing on the 2 percent because we’ve lived it for two and a half years,” he said. “Trying to tell our team — and I’m probably our worst offender — to enjoy the moment. We’re doing something special and unique and no one’s ever done this before.”
