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For Gordon, safety is the priority

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 9, 2001

Jeff Gordon knows Winston Cup cars are not as safe as they someday will be, but that will not stop him from driving Sunday at Martinsville Speedway.

Or at Talladega. Or Phoenix.

Or anywhere else NASCAR holds a Winston Cup race. Safety changes are coming, he said, that will make the cars less rigid and, maybe, the walls at tracks softer. Still, he takes comfort in the belief his car is as safe as it can be, for now.

And he drives.

"There's no doubt we need to make these cars more crushable," said Gordon, who is likely on his way to a fourth championship. "We need to find ways to soften these walls up so they absorb the impact yet don't make it worse.

"But it's not going to happen right away. Anybody that gets out there knows that. I know it and I'm still planning on getting out there. I'm sorry if you don't agree with that or understand that, but it's just the mentality of a race car driver."

The death of ARCA driver Blaise Alexander on Thursday at Lowe's Motor Speedway was the fifth head-trauma fatality in major stock-car racing in the past 18 months.

Alexander was wearing an ARCA-mandated collar called a "donut," but not a HANS or Hutchens device, which medical experts claim offer the greatest protection.

As NASCAR considers making head and neck support devices mandatory, Gordon and other leading safety advocates wonder why anyone would drive without one. For now, it remains a driver's best chance to survive a potentially fatal crash.

"My first question was if (Alexander) was wearing a head and neck restraint," Gordon said. "When I heard he wasn't, I was devastated for him and his family. I could not believe that there are still people out there getting into cars without this."

HARDER THAN IT LOOKS: Gil de Ferran's wire-to-wire victory in Sunday's Houston Grand Prix -- he led all 100 laps -- may have looked easy, but de Ferran assured it was not.

"It's never easy, even when you don't have anybody behind you," said de Ferran, who took over the CART points lead from Kenny Brack with the victory. "It's so easy to make a mistake. You're an inch or two away from the wall. Anything can happen."

EXHIBIT A: For some reason, Mike Wallace's ability to run with the lead pack in Sunday's UAW-GM 500 has everyone thinking the No. 12 Ford team is a crack outfit, after all.

"I always knew I could do it. I just needed a race car to get it done," he said. "When a crew blows off 14- to 15-second pit stops time-in and time-out, and you've got a good race car, you can finally show what you can do."

Hello?

Wallace, hired Wednesday to replace fired driver Jeremy Mayfield, had a blast for 281 laps, but finished 34th. Why? The engine failed.

SQUEEZE PLAY: CART's decision to change its engine specifications to be more like the Indy Racing League could drive suppliers Ford and Honda from U.S. open-wheel racing. The companies say they cannot design new engines for CART by 2003.

MAKING AN IMPRESSION: Jimmie Johnson's Winston Cup debut almost turned dubious. Johnson climbed as high as fifth before he "caught a bump wrong" and spun in Turn4, nearly collecting his new boss, Gordon.

"Crashing my boss' car and taking him out with me would not have been a good thing," said Johnson, who signed to drive the No. 48 Chevrolet next season for co-owners Gordon and Rick Hendrick.

STAYING FOCUSED: Winston Cup drivers were on the starting grid when news broke that the United States had attacked Afghanistan. The start was delayed 10 minutes.

"I really wasn't thinking about the race at all until, "Gentlemen, start your engines,' " said Ward Burton, who finished third. "I think we've all been conditioned to block everything else out. That's our job."

MOVING UP: With his fifth place, Jeff Burton moved from 11th to 10th in Winston Cup points, his first top-10 appearance of the season. Burton, who challenged for the title last season, was 38th after four races.

-- Information from other news organizations was used in this report.

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