R&D Center a place where safety meets innovation

• Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Editor's Note: The following is the first installment of a five-part series featuring the NASCAR Research and Development Center in Concord, N.C. Part 1 goes back to the beginning of the safety initiative.

Brett Bodine remembers a time, not that long ago, when it was more important to be tough than to be safe. He should know, since he was the first Cup driver to ever wear the Head and Neck Support system -- or HANS -- in a race.

"In 2000, when I showed up at Pocono with the HANS device, I was ridiculed," Bodine said. "[They said,] 'What, are you crazy? What do you need that thing for?' You're going to break your neck. You can't see, you won't be able to see out of the car. I don't know if I want you to race wearing that.'"

Much like the initial reaction to the HANS, the new car was low on style points. But as David Caraviello writes, its safety initiative gets high marks.

• Complete story, click here
• Video: Bodine on new car

It was a safety initiative that NASCAR technical director Steve Peterson had been pushing for five years without success. Within two years of its debut -- primarily as a result of Dale Earnhardt's fatal accident at Daytona -- every driver in the series was wearing some form of head and neck restraint.

Now it's as commonplace to see drivers wearing HANS devices as full-face helmets and firesuits.

The mantra at NASCAR's Research and Development Center -- the first facility owned and operated by a major motorsports sanctioning body -- is "safety, competition, cost management." And it's a theme woven into every aspect of the day-to-day activities there.

Bodine, who holds a degree in mechanical engineering from the State University of New York at Alfred, joined Peterson on NASCAR's research and development team as a special project engineer in 2004. Bodine is currently director of cost research.

Bodine said NASCAR has taken a proactive stance on those three issues, and the results have been immediate. It was here that the design work was done on the next generation Cup chassis that went into service last season -- and the ongoing testing of a Nationwide Series prototype that could be approved for 2009. The center is adding a seat-testing rig and new engine dynamometer.

"This whole company's different," Bodine said. "As an owner back then, NASCAR's tool box has expanded, not only from what the series means to the public -- with the Nationwide Series being international and two international series ourselves -- but this building and what it represents.

"Everything we look at is safety, competition and cost, and we try to affect those three key areas in a positive way. Every project we work on, whether it's one of Steve's safety initiatives, not only does he want the safest seat, but he wants a seat that's relatively available to everybody, at a price point that everybody can afford it."

Peterson, recipient of the 2006 Society of Automotive Engineers Motorsports Achievement Award, until recently said it was difficult to change the mind-set of the people in the garage area. For years, safety initiatives were viewed with skepticism, or considered frivolous wastes of money. But change has taken place in the sport, even if it seems glacial at times.

"When you go back in the history of auto racing, that's happened," Peterson said. "In the '60s, with the roll cage. In the '50s, with the roll bars. In the '40s, it was the crash helmets."

Bodine agreed.

"In the '50s, my dad made seatbelts mandatory [at family owned Chemung Speedrome], and drivers were protesting," Bodine said. "They would not race. He made them all put a seatbelt in and they said, 'We're not racing.'"

From HANS to SAFER, NASCAR has come a long way in regards to safety. But officials admit there's still a long way to go.

• Building much SAFER barriers
• Improvement process ongoing

But Earnhardt's death and the resulting inquiry into nearly every aspect of the sport's inner workings finally convinced NASCAR that it needed to take the initiative. In February 2002, land was purchased near the Concord Regional Airport and construction on the 61,000-foot facility began two months later. The research and development team, led then by former crew chief Gary Nelson, along with series directors and other NASCAR officials, moved from a temporary facility in December that year.

Managing director Mike Fisher said taking the step of having a test center -- and the initiatives that have resulted -- has put safety at the forefront of discussions in the garage area.

"I think culturally, that's one of the things that's changed in the whole community," Fisher said. "Now you've got drivers who are much more aware of all these activities that we're doing, and they're pushing racetracks to do more. The educational level of the entire community in the garage is so much better. To me, that's one of the big changes. It's not only us, but it's the awareness of the entire racing community about the importance of [safety] and why we're doing it. Folks are starting to educate themselves and that helps."

Peterson said the changes from when he first took the job in 1995 have been nothing short of amazing.

"Fifteen years ago, you were working hard on things that would stop career-ending injuries," Peterson said. "Ten years ago, you were working on things that would keep a driver out of the car for the next race, four or five weeks. Today, you're working on keeping the bumps and bruises out. He doesn't even want to feel pain."

The engineers at the research and design center work closely with Dr. Dean Sicking's Midwest Roadside Safety Facility in Nebraska, reviewing crashes -- like Michael McDowell's heavy hit at Texas.

"Now we're in the process of continuing to evaluate the impacts, looking very carefully at each one and saying, 'Are there changes and improvements that can be made?'" Peterson said. "And also, we're just looking at the application of more barriers wherever they're needed first."

In addition, NASCAR's research and design team tests different products to make sure they meet the sanctioning body's approval.

"A good example of that was the carbon monoxide filters," Peterson said. "When they first came out, there were a number of manufacturers. What we did was build a piece of test equipment here where teams could bring in a device and could evaluate it. It cleaned up the market very quickly, because the guys who said, 'Yeah, I've got the magic thing for $39.95' and it didn't work, nobody would buy from him. Instead, you could buy from somebody whose product was proven to work."

And cost is always a factor, Bodine said. One example of that is the rule limiting gear ratios -- and now, mandatory horsepower reduction in the Nationwide Series.

The wreckage from Michael McDowell's crash at Texas was hauled off and sent to the R&D Center for further study.

• Complete story, click here
• Video: McDowell crashes

"We might not ever be able to lower the costs, but we [hope to] keep it in check as much as possible," Bodine said. " A couple of years ago, we instituted a gear rule in all three of our national series and, to me, that was the first big initiative that NASCAR had taken to lower the cost of engine development, keeping the gear and RPM in check.

"This last year, we instituted a taped spacer in the Nationwide and Truck series', that the Truck Series had been racing for a couple of seasons at Daytona and Talladega. It's a way to reduce horsepower, and keep horsepower and RPM at a level that we thought that engines then could be used in multiple races and thereby lower team owners' engine bill."

Fisher said the obvious next step is to take the lessons learned at NASCAR's highest levels and make those safety improvements available -- and affordable -- for every form of racing.

"I think one of the things that we've been trying to stress and emphasize to the marketplace is that getting folks at lower levels of racing to use the things we've found and learned at the upper levels," Fisher said. "We do a great job of protecting the 150 drivers in our [national series], but there's 20,000 that race on short tracks. We need to get them all in a HANS and a good seat, properly mounted belts -- all of the things we've learned -- that may be the biggest we can have, from a safety standpoint."

And despite all the advances made in research and design since Earnhardt's accident, safety remains the group's top priority, because the danger of injury or death is always present.

"Until we can stand in front of [everyone] and say, 'We've eliminated the possibility for fatality in racing,' we're not done," Fisher said. "We've taken care of a lot of the low-hanging fruit. There's advances like the HANS and the SAFER barrier, those are generational-type advances. There's a lot of things we work on in the interim, until something like that comes along."

Peterson agreed.

"Have we achieved things? Yeah, there's a lot of guys who are having a very long career in racing with little or no injury," he said. "But we'll never stop injury. We'll never stop fatalities. We can only diminish and reduce [the chances]."

Bodine added that the quest for safer equipment never stops.

"We'll never reach a day when I'll say, 'Well, there's nothing to work on,'" he said.

But Brett Bodine can watch Michael McDowell climb from his destroyed car at Texas and take pride in the fact that he shares some of the credit for the safety advances made in recent years. Because it wasn't that long ago when it was more important to be tough than to be safe.

"It's amazing for a lot of us guys who have been around a long time, seeing a wreck like that and what we expect the outcome to be because of the past," Bodine said. "That was really an unexpected result because of the safety initiatives that were implemented in that five seconds."