Darrell Waltrip, the NASCAR Hall of Famer now working as TV analyst, said after Denny Hamlin injured his back Sunday in a crash at Auto Club Speedway that all NASCAR tracks should have SAFER barriers on any wall that a car could reach.
“Knowing what we know today about safety, there is no excuse for not having SAFER barriers all the way around every track,” he said. “It would have made all the difference in the world for Hamlin at Fontana.”
Hamlin struck an unprotected portion of the wall at Auto Club and is expected to be out of his car for six weeks.
Atlanta Motor Speedway president Ed Clark said he and his fellow track operators all consider safety a top priority and don’t hesitate to install any safety features recommended by NASCAR’s safety experts.
“Any time something happens we learn from it,” Clark said. “And when there are recommendations, every track responds appropriately.”
As for Hamlin, his championship hopes obviously have been dealt a major setback. He still could make the Chase for the Sprint Cup as a wild card, but he would have to rank at least 20th in points after the first 26 races, and he probably would have to win multiple races after his return.
Hamlin is 10th in the standings, 54 points behind leader Dale Earnhardt Jr. Last year, the 20th-place driver after 26 races, Jamie McMurray, was 274 points out of the lead.
Hamlin’s first week of recovery comes on the Easter break, but in the next five weeks the circuit travels to two of his best tracks — Martinsville Speedway on April 7 and Richmond International Raceway on April 27 — and to Texas Motor Speedway, where he won both races in 2010 and Kansas Speedway, where he is the defending winner of the upcoming STP 400.
Xxx: With a second-place finish at Bristol Motor Speedway and a sixth-place run at Auto Club Speedway, 20-year-old Nationwide Series rookie Kyle Larson is beginning to live up to the lofty expectations placed on him by many in the sport.
But where he really shined last weekend was in his return to his dirt-racing roots.
While in his home state of California for the races at Fontana, Larson entered the World of Outlaws sprint-car race at the Stockton 99 Dirt Track, a 3/8-mile oval built inside the old horse-racing track at the San Joaquin Fairgrounds.
Larson, who took a wild ride into the catchfence in the Nationwide season opener at Daytona, took a much calmer airborne trip when he rode from Fontana to the sprint-car race in Tony Stewart’s private jet. Once at the track, Larson, racing in front of a packed house estimated at 10,000 fans, qualified third, won his heat race, led early in the feature then drove to the outside of Tim Kaeding in the closing laps to regain the lead. Larson prevailed in a green-white-checkered-flag dash to the finish to claim his third career World of Outlaws victory.
Xxxx: The local short-track season is picking up the pace this weekend as Gresham Motorsports Park in Jefferson hosts the second annual Larry Fleeman Memorial Race on Saturday night.
Drivers expected to compete in the main event include Anderson Bowen, Kyle Plott, Dalton Grindle, Michael Lance, Spencer Davis and Russell Fleeman.
Fleeman’s father, who died in May, was a former mayor of Dacula, an automobile dealer and a big supporter of local stock-car racing.
Russell Fleeman said he plans to enter the 198-lap Late Model race as well as the accompanying Outlaw feature. The Late Model headliner will be run in two segments. In the first, about 100 laps, caution laps will count. Then there will be a 10-minute break and the remainder of the race will be run with caution laps not counted.
Senoia Raceway in Coweta County will open its season this weekend.
In the track’s top division, Late Models, defending champion Jason Williams has not committed to defending his title, leaving drivers including Tod Darda, Shane Fulcher, Laddie Fulcher, Russ Ogletree, Trey White and Glenn Morris among the likely contenders. Senoia will host the Spring Fling 40 for Late Model drivers April 6, and points races begin April 13.
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