From a safety standpoint, new car lives up to billing

The car tumbled and burned until it at last came to rest on the racetrack's apron, leaving behind a debris field of tire treads, fenders, and other various parts that had been flung off by the violence of the crash. It looked so similar to so many other rolling accidents seen throughout the years -- the one in 1993 that left Rusty Wallace with a concussion and a fractured wrist, the one in 1996 that left Bill Elliott with a broken leg, the one in 2000 that left Geoffrey Bodine in intensive care with a broken wrist, facial lacerations and a cracked bone in his back. But Michael McDowell climbed gingerly from the wreckage, and into a guest appearance on Ellen DeGeneres' show.

The rookie driver is living proof of how far NASCAR has come in the area of competitor safety, something the series was woefully behind in until a spate of fatalities and debilitating injuries earlier this decade forced the implementation of technologies that are now saving lives. Only a few years ago, a crash of the magnitude of McDowell's would have left a driver with a concussion, a few broken bones, or worse. But Friday at Texas Motor Speedway, the 23-year-old walked away well enough to do a round of television interviews in New York and Los Angeles, and compete again this weekend in his hometown of Phoenix.

It was the most spectacularly destructive accident this writer can remember since Bodine's fiery crash in the inaugural Craftsman Truck race at Daytona International Speedway eight years ago. For McDowell to survive unscathed, so many things had to come into play -- the Head and Neck Support (HANS) device, improved seats and headrests, the presence of the Steel and Foam Energy Reduction (SAFER) barrier, the fast work of track rescue personnel. And then there's the car itself, that much-maligned, severely scrutinized, rear-winged vehicle formerly known as the Car of Tomorrow, which from a safety standpoint continues to prove itself with each passing week.

Michael McDowell walked away with only hurt feelings after a near head-on accident in Friday's qualifying at Texas.

• Complete story, click here
• Car taken to R&D Center
• McDowell making rounds
• Watch McDowell's crash

It's had plenty of opportunities. Every race day, it seems, there's another violent crash testing the safety capabilities of this new car -- Sam Hornish Jr. plowing into the rear of Casey Mears' disabled vehicle at California (watch video), Jeff Gordon slamming into the unprotected backstretch wall opening at Las Vegas (watch video), McDowell's terrifying tumble in Texas qualifying, J.J. Yeley's brutally hard impact into an unprotected inside wall during the Texas race (watch video). Each time, the driver has emerged unhurt. Had they not been in the more-forgiving new car, with its wider and taller roll cage, its reinforced left side and fuel cell, and its driver's seat shifted four inches to the right, how different might those outcomes have been? Thankfully, we don't have to find out.

While the car itself is but one part of a wider spectrum of improved safety measures, there's no question this new vehicle is safer than its predecessor. There's no question that drivers are walking away from accidents that only a few years ago might have necessitated a helicopter flight to a nearby hospital. And there's no question that the enhanced safety aspects of this car are worth whatever competition headaches teams and inspectors are forced to deal with now on a week-to-week basis.

So please, enough about how "boring" you may think the racing is these days. Those of us who were involved in this sport in 2000 and 2001 remember how sad those days were, how every week seemed to bring news of another fatality or terrible injury, how the deaths of Adam Petty, Kenny Irwin, Tony Roper and Dale Earnhardt hung over NASCAR like a dark, oppressive cloud. How welcome safety advances like this new car would have been back then. How willing everyone would have been to have a few less cars on the lead lap if it meant saving lives. How thankful we should be that wrecks like Gordon's at Las Vegas and Yeley's at Texas occurred this season, and not in the years when safety advances seemed force-fed.

Given time, crew chiefs will figure this car out, just as they've figured everything else out. Competition, by its very nature, ebbs and flows. The safety issue never goes away. In a sport where 3,450-pound cars travel at 200 mph, strange and unexpected things happen. Steve Park's steering wheel comes off at Darlington, sending him careening into Larry Foyt's oncoming car under caution.. A crossover gate at Bristol is left ajar, and slices Mike Harmon's vehicle nearly in half. The possibilities of fire and vicious T-bone hits and going airborne at Talladega still exist. There are still too many parts of too many racetracks not covered by a barrier. There's still so much that can go wrong. The notion of complete safety, a motorsports world where the threat of death is entirely removed from the equation, is a total fantasy.

So pardon me if I don't exactly share concerns over how many cars there are on the lead lap, or how difficult it may be to pass, or whether the same handful of drivers seems to be up front week after week. If you're looking for criticisms of the new car, you won't find them here. Not as long as drivers continue to walk away.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.