This month 22 years ago, SAFER Barriers were installed for the first time at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It revolutionized one of the most basic, yet important, parts of race tracks, retaining walls. What is it that makes SAFER Barriers so unique, and how do they work?
Retaining walls have an interesting history in motorsports. In the early days, tracks would come up with their own solutions. Popular ones included guardrails, wood planks, or, sometimes, no wall at all if there was nothing outside of the track in that area.
The most common type of barrier was guardrails, similar to those on a typical roadway. The problem with guardrails was they were too weak to support certain impacts. One example of this was Lee Petty and Johnny Beauchamp’s crash at Daytona in 1961.
Concrete walls were much stronger and soon became the standard for retaining walls across NASCAR. At the time, the focus was on keeping cars on the track and not bursting through walls, which is what concrete walls do well. Pocono Raceway used a different material, iron boilerplate, for a while, but, eventually, concrete walls were installed.
While the concrete was great at keeping cars on the race track, the walls were a bit too strong. Instead of absorbing the energy from a hard impact, the energy was dispersed throughout the car, which meant the driver took the brunt of the impact. This played a role in Dale Earnhardt’s fatal crash at Daytona in 2001.
NASCAR made significant changes in the following months, most notably implementing the HANS device in race cars, but, Indianapolis Motor Speedway took a different approach. They partnered with University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Dean Sicking to invent a new retaining wall. That’s where the Steel and Foam Energy Reduction (SAFER) Barrier was invented, and it was quickly implemented at tracks across the country.
SAFER Barriers are designed to absorb the energy from hard impacts. Whereas concrete walls were firm and did not move at all, SAFER Barriers were designed to flex a little bit, but, not too much to where the wall would break apart on impact.
This is accomplished via a solid steel wall placed in front of the outer concrete wall. Steel is fairly flexible, but, hard to break apart. Between the steel wall and the concrete wall, energy-absorbant foam blocks are placed to brace the concrete wall and the steel barrier.
The result is that the wall flexes when a car impacts it, absorbing the energy from the accident instead of throwing it back to the car and the driver. Ryan Blaney’s crash at Daytona in 2023 showcases just how much the barrier flexes.
NASCAR has suffered zero fatalities since 2001, and a lot of that can be attributed to SAFER Barriers. Indianapolis Motor Speedway hasn’t seen a fatality on its’ oval layout since Tony Renna’s fatal crash in 2003.
From there, SAFER Barriers became the standard for retaining walls across the country. Iowa Speedway became the first track to be built with SAFER Barriers installed from day 1 when the track opened in 2006.
In the early days of SAFER Barriers, the “Soft walls”, as they were also called at the time, were only added in areas where crashes were most common. Tracks often had them in the corners, but, straightaway walls or inside retaining walls were often left unprotected.
Drivers would find these places to hit, which caused some major issues. This all came to a head in 2015 at Daytona, where Kyle Busch hit the inside concrete wall head-on, and broke his leg.
Soon afterward, NASCAR and drivers began pushing for SAFER barriers to be added all around the race track. Gradually, tracks began to add SAFER Barriers around the entire track.
Nowadays, it’s rare for a wall at an oval track to not include SAFER Barriers. However, exposed walls do still exist here and there, and Ryan Blaney found one at Nashville in 2023.
SAFER Barriers are now the standard retaining wall on local tracks across the country. They have saved lives and prevented major injuries.
Joe Gibbs Racing alleged that former competition director Chris Gabehart took a wide range of confidential team information regarding competitive performance data, engineering processes, financial records, and internal personnel details. But what exactly do the documents say was taken?
JGR states it is entitled to damages believed to exceed $8 million, potentially subject to enhancement, along with attorneys’ fees. The organization is also seeking multiple forms of relief, expected to exceed that amount, as well as a cease-and-desist order to prevent any use or disclosure of what it describes as trade secrets.
You can learn more about the lawsuit itself, the circumstances surrounding Gabehart’s departure, and the broader allegations in the article linked below
NASCAR isn’t nerdy enough. Not in a cringe way, not in a gimmicky way, but in a way that could quietly and organically grow the sport. After a Daytona weekend filled with spectacle and nostalgia, DJ Yee believes there’s a bigger opportunity sitting right in front of NASCAR, one that doesn’t change the racing at all but could completely change how fans engage with it.
Other leagues have turned analytics into conversation fuel. In baseball, stars like Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani aren’t loud personalities, but advanced metrics tell their story anyway. NASCAR, meanwhile, has mountains of telemetry data but shares very little of it in a meaningful way. Throttle traces, brake usage, steering inputs, tire wear models, fuel efficiency ratings, clean air percentages, and even a “positions above replacement” type metric, the possibilities are endless. None of it would intrude on the racing. Casual fans could ignore it. But hardcore fans, creators, and analysts would suddenly have tools to build deeper narratives around drivers and performance.
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For the first time in a while, it feels like NASCAR fans see a bigger light at the end of the tunnel. The start of 2026 has brought real optimism, from improved racing to sharper marketing, and even an 11 percent bump for the Daytona 500 to 7.5 million viewers. After a rough couple of seasons, that kind of stability matters. The question now is simple, is this momentum real or just a honeymoon phase?
There’s been a noticeable shift. The marketing feels more modern without feeling fake. Broadcasts are embracing energy and meme culture without losing authenticity. Social media efforts are spotlighting drivers and personalities in ways that echo how legends like Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, and Tony Stewart once drew fans in. NASCAR’s identity has always been edge, personality, and grassroots simplicity, and recent changes feel closer to that core. But none of it matters without patience. Jaret believes the foundation may be stronger right now, but consistency will decide whether this is a spark or a true turning point.
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