AFTERSHOCKS

Amid the national outpouring of grief, Dale Earnhardt’s death nine weeks ago triggered considerable soul searching and prompts a fundamental question about stock car racing:

Is the exorbitant price of this product necessary?

Did Earnhardt need to die in a 180-mph crash nine months after Adam Petty, 19; seven months after Kenny Irwin, 30; four months after Tony Roper, 35? NASCAR drivers all, and all killed in the same way.

At first glance, the answer is unequivocally yes. The economics are basic. The market exacts what it can bear, whether it’s $1.70 a gallon for unleaded to get to work or the lives of drivers to get through the weekend.

And the folks who fuel NASCAR, those who buy tickets to races and turn their TVs to the drone of engines, have not had their fill. Without the danger that too often results in death, the thrill is gone.

So, it’s business as usual. The Napa Auto Parts 500 will be run Sunday at California Speedway, barely two months after the Daytona 500, which claimed Earnhardt’s life. Since that day, in fact, eight Winston Cup races have been run, just as scheduled.

Drivers live by a fatalistic creed. Strap yourself in and get on with it. Born a half-century ago of Carolina moonshine and bred of a sneer-at-fear mentality that Earnhardt personified, NASCAR never has blanched at its risk-reward ratio.

Legendary driver Richard Petty, whose stature was approached only by Earnhardt’s, once said to his wife, “If I get killed and you ever sue anybody over it, I will haunt you. I know the risk. I take all the responsibility.”

But accountability no longer rests solely with drivers. NASCAR, nudged to the middle lane of sports entertainment by recent television contracts with Fox and NBC totaling $2.4 billion, must get serious about safety in order to continue to reap the financial benefits a huge national audience brings.

NASCAR, though, can be maddeningly arrogant and impossibly secretive. Changes are made at a perplexingly plodding pace. An organization in charge of cars racing at nearly 200 mph moves like Grandma hunched over the wheel of her ’74 Imperial.

On safety issues, NASCAR lags behind Formula One, Championship Auto Racing Teams and the Indy Racing League. Technological advances in driver safety are seemingly met with indifference, investigations of crashes conceal more than they reveal, and every action--or inaction--appears aimed at shielding the organization from culpability.

The macho racing culture serves as NASCAR’s great enabler. Earnhardt, stock car racing’s most visible and charismatic figure, scoffed at many safety measures and drove with reckless abandon. “It’s not a sport for the faint of heart,” he often said.

Yet, ironically, the death of the driver known as “the Intimidator” could bring about change. Whispers have turned to shouts. Drivers previously afraid of coming off as wimps are articulating fears and concerns.

Improving driver safety is the overriding challenge NASCAR faces and may well determine whether stock car racing continues its increase in popularity.

“We spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to make the car go faster,” driver Bret Bodine said. “To not look at safety the same way we look at performance seems pretty stupid to me.”

Drivers may be getting smart on their own. There were no crashes in the Talladega 500 on Sunday--not even a caution flag--because the 43 drivers had agreed before the race to display the manners of a cotillion.

“The only real strategy was not to wreck,” driver Matt Kenseth said.

Fortunately for the drivers--and NASCAR--it worked.

*

The deaths of Petty, Irwin and Roper resulted from head injuries--basilar skull fractures--caused by violent whiplash. And despite NASCAR’s initial efforts to blame Earnhardt’s fatality on a faulty seat belt, biomedical expert Barry Myers reviewed the autopsy photos and concluded that Earnhardt died the same way, and probably would have had the seat belt remained intact.

John Melvin, a Detroit racing safety expert, believes whiplash fatalities would be dramatically reduced if drivers wore a head-and-neck support device (HANS) and a six-point harness belt system. Myers acknowledged the potential of such support systems but stopped short of saying one would have saved Earnhardt’s life.

Other remedies require funding, research and the support of NASCAR: seats with stronger sides, cars designed to crush in the event of a crash, and track walls either covered with or made of a crushable foam.

Mandating HANS and implementing changes in seat and car design is difficult because stock cars are not uniform.

“To ask them to change can’t be done quickly,” Melvin said. “Every driver has an individual seating package and the size of the driver plays a role. You can’t prevent all injuries. But HANS and these other ideas can make a huge difference.”

The Tribune newspapers, including The Times, ran an extensive series of stories by Ed Hinton of the Orlando Sentinel on racing safety a week before Earnhardt’s death. Hinton concluded that of 15 drivers who had died in crashes since 1991, 12 might have survived had they worn HANS. Yet NASCAR did not take an active role in developing the device and only in February began encouraging drivers to use it.

NASCAR claims it has experts examining safety issues and is spending money on research and testing. But those efforts are difficult to evaluate because officials won’t discuss them.

“In research and development, you have to fail things to find out why they failed,” NASCAR President Mike Helton said. “But we don’t want to make a public spectacle of our failures.

“And when we do [test], we won’t tell you who [is conducting the tests] because we won’t distract them from doing what they do.”

Other racing organizations have responded quickly to fatalities and are increasingly proactive.

Formula One learned from the death of brilliant driver Ayrton Senna at the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola, Italy, in 1994. Cars were redesigned with survival cells built into the chassis, horsepower was reduced and crash tests were mandated. The nose cones and sides of cars are crushable and absorb impact. No Formula One driver has died in a crash since.

CART learned from the death of rookie Gonzalo Rodriguez at Laguna Seca Raceway in 1999, largely because his car was equipped with a crash-data recorder. Already a leader in HANS research and development, CART made the collar mandatory for its oval-track races in 2001.

The IRL has poured funds into developing soft walls--covering or replacing the concrete retaining walls at tracks with energy-dissipating, high-density foam.

Meanwhile, NASCAR comes off as uncaring at worst, stuck in a rut and spinning its wheels at best.

“While the personal loss of a friend such as Dale is big, what is bigger is the jump to the conclusion that NASCAR is not doing as well as it can,” Helton said. “It drives me absolutely crazy for somebody to say NASCAR doesn’t care. I cannot stomach that.

“As bad as I hurt over losing Adam Petty, Kenny Irwin, Tony Roper, and now Dale Earnhardt, all of that hurt combined is not as big as somebody saying that NASCAR doesn’t care. That is so wrong.”

Helton expects the public to simply trust that NASCAR is on the cutting edge of protecting its drivers.

“We believe that there is evidence in the history of our sport that NASCAR has made safety a priority,” he said. “The responsibility of safety is shared by everybody in the garage area.”

Just don’t inquire about the cost of those efforts. And don’t go near the garage.

“NASCAR is a private, closely held company and we don’t discuss the economics of our sport,” Helton said.

*

The actions of tight-lipped NASCAR and others since Earnhardt’s death reveal more than words:

* Daytona Beach police detective Robert Walker, the lead investigator in the crash, was told by his supervisor not to attend Earnhardt’s autopsy and not to inspect or photograph the wrecked car, leaving key elements of the investigation to NASCAR officials.

* Earnhardt’s helmet--important to understanding his injuries--was confiscated by NASCAR officials and turned over to his family before a medical examiner or police could look at it.

* The Orlando Sentinel asked for autopsy photos for its medical expert to review. The newspaper said the photos would not be published. Teresa Earnhardt, Dale’s widow, obtained a court order sealing the photos, then reached a compromise with the paper that allowed Myers, a Duke professor appointed by a mediator, to examine them.

* Florida Gov. Jeb Bush signed a bill that bars public access to autopsy photos unless a judge approves the release. The Sentinel and its sister paper, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, filed a lawsuit challenging the new law, and six other Florida news organizations have asked to join the legal challenge.

* NASCAR and the emergency physician employed by Daytona International Speedway initially blamed the death on a faulty seat belt, then backpedaled when Myers said whiplash had killed Earnhardt before the seat belt malfunctioned.

* Bill Simpson, owner of the company that makes the seat belts, received death and bomb threats from angry race fans and the tires on his car were slashed. He believes NASCAR officials compromised the investigation by removing the seat-belt assembly from Earnhardt’s car, but feels vindicated by Myers’ findings. He also has said he has a video showing a rescue worker cutting the belt.

* NASCAR commissioned an accident-reconstruction review by a team of experts that is expected to report no earlier than August. The review will cover impact barrier testing and include real and model crash tests.

Of course, NASCAR will provide no more details.

“When all of our investigations are finished, one individual will pull it all together,” Helton said. “Maybe then we will tell you who that is.”

Melvin, the industry’s leading safety expert, is employed by car manufactures and has spoken with NASCAR officials only informally. However, he gives NASCAR the benefit of the doubt.

“It is their nature to keep things under their hat and it doesn’t do them a lot of favors,” he said. “But I think they are very honest in their goals of trying to improve safety. I get suspicious of people coming out too soon with a solution and having a bunch of PR before it’s proven. NASCAR is never guilty of that.”

*

Sometimes, trying times foster noble change. No doubt, the recent cluster of deaths is trying.

“This is a tough period in NASCAR history,” NASCAR Chairman Bill France Jr. said. “I cannot think of a time that has been more tough.”

Helton took a hard line in a drivers’ meeting before the race at Talladega. No recklessness, no driving on the apron. The drivers were only too glad to comply.

So NASCAR got through one race at the notoriously dangerous track in Alabama. But races are no fun with everyone holding his breath. Talladega was safe, but the merry-go-round at the Santa Monica Pier provides more action.

Restrictor plates that stifle horsepower by reducing airflow into the engines keep speeds below 200 mph at Daytona and Talladega, the two longest Winston Cup tracks. NASCAR spiced things up by mandating bodywork changes to increase drafting, but now the cars are bunched together and the longest races are a 180-mph waiting game.

Devices that keep the head from snapping forward on impact continue to improve. HANS has undergone modifications to make it easier to wear in the roomy cockpits. Another device--a harness worn on the outside of a driver’s fire suit that connects to the roll bar--has been worn by drivers.

Jeff Gordon, one of NASCAR’s top young stars, used HANS at Talladega.

“You try to do anything you can to ensure safety in these cars,” he said. “The best safety device is to stay out of crashes.”

If only it were that easy.