Workers at Charlotte Motor Speedway since the beginning of '14 have "installed an additional 4,800 feet of SAFER walls and tire barriers," and several NASCAR drivers have "applauded the steps the sport has taken ... but expect more to be done in the future," according to Joseph Person of the CHARLOTTE OBSERVER. Driver Kevin Harvick said, "I know that there is a really big plan in place. You can't just go out and just put walls up. I think the planning and the organization and everything that has gone through has been a full court press." Speedway Motorsports Inc. CEO Marcus Smith, whose company operates CMS, said that he is "proud of the safety measures taken." Person noted NASCAR and CMS officials in January '14 met with SAFER barrier developers "to review the Charlotte track," and CMS workers "began implementing the engineers’ recommendations last year." But Smith said Charlotte officials decided to “go even farther” after Kyle Busch’s wreck at ISC-owned Daytona Int'l Speedway in February. A CMS spokesperson said that approximately 2,900 feet of SAFER walls "has been installed in the past two years on the inside wall areas of Turns 1 and 2, the entrance to pit road and the backstretch, and along the outside walls near Turns 1 and 4." Smith added that the "only areas not covered at the Charlotte track are the outside wall along the backstretch, which engineers have said is not a high-risk area, and along pit road, where crews have to hustle over the walls for pit stops." SAFER barrier inventor Dean Sicking said that NASCAR "needs to do 'a concentrated study and detailed analysis' of every wall hit at all of its tracks over the past several years to identify areas where tire barriers and SAFER walls should be installed" (CHARLOTTE OBSERVER, 5/24).
