Safety matters

NASCAR should take a second look at traveling teams

Ryan Newman, God bless him, has spent a lot of time this year upside down, hurtling through the air and/or on fire. So if anyone can speak intelligently about NASCAR's safety procedures, it's him.

Newman flipped his car rather innocently enough Saturday. "The crash itself was very, very minor," he said. But if you're in a car that's on its roof, no matter how minor the incident that put you there, you're probably going to be a little edgy. Newman was, and the response of the safety crew did little to assuage that edginess. It took more than a minute for them to show up, which had the normally reserved Newman popping off to the media. "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," he said. "I have a reason to."

NASCAR was quick to defend its procedures -- and they actually make a pretty good point about not dispatching crews while cars are on the track. But this is as good a time as any to get into an issue that comes up at least once a summer: having a dedicated, traveling medical and safety crew. Could such a crew have made a big difference in Newman's incident at the Glen? Who knows? But would they have made things worse? No way. "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. 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."

If you ask any driver with open-wheel experience, they'll race about the CART and IRL medical and safety crews. The arguments are oft repeated and seem to make sense. They'd be specifically trained for dealing with car wrecks. They'd know the drivers. They'd be able to better track long-term problems, like concussions. (Junior's concussion claims last summer brought the issue out into the open last year.)

NASCAR clearly likes things the way they are, which a debatable position. To me, though, the more significant issue is why the drivers' wishes seem to be ignored. In any other sport, if there was a serious incident and the athlete involved had a complaint about how it was handled, heads would roll. Why? Because players in virtually every other sport are unionized, and while the words "players' union" make just about every person who hears them blanch, the players themselves love them. And who can blame them? Thanks to players unions, salaries have gone through the roof, retirement benefits are in place (for guys making astronomical money to begin with) and you can choke your coach without losing your job. NASCAR drivers should take a look around and realize that a lot of voices saying the same thing in unison are more often heard and heeded than a few scattershot voices popping off now and again. If they want a dedicated safety team, they should demand it.

Richard Childress Racing . Few operations were in worse shape than RCR last year. The drivers didn't get along and there was plenty of infighting, the kinds of things that are written off as being "colorful" on successful teams. But the RCR guys were painfully slow (Jeff Green was actually the top RCR driver in the standings), which just made things worse. Somehow in all this disarray Childress got the team pointed in the right direction. Harvick is the championship contender we all thought he'd be last year, and Robby Gordon has become a solid all-around racer who is a threat to win any time right hand turns are involved. (True, the third car is a bit of a problem.) Check out how they've run in the last seven races: Harvick's average finish is 7.0, and Gordon's is 11.0. If you throw out his 40th place finish in Daytona, it's 6.2.

Bobby Labonte . Remember when he had that midsummer stretch where he finished second three times and third twice and I was pondering betting everything I owned (and several things I didn't own) on him? Well, his momentum is officially gone. He's gone five races without a top ten and has slid back to seventh.

Jeff Gordon . Remember last year how Gordon sort of lingered around all summer then put a streak together (culminating with a win in Darlington) that had everyone convinced he was going to take over the points lead, then he blew an engine next week and wrecked two weeks after that to completely scupper any chance he had? (If you don't remember, just reread that sentence-it'll refresh your memory.) Looks like the same thing is happening this year. He had four top fives in six races to pull within 174 points of Matt Kenseth after Sonoma, and you could just sense that if Kenseth's bubble ever burst Gordon would be there to pounce on him. But in his last four races he's got a 24th, a 36th and a 33rd (the 33rd, which came at Watkins Glen, was especially tough to swallow since he started on the pole and got spun out on the first lap, then worked his way back to a respectable position before running out of gas). All of a sudden he's 396 points back. Ooof.