SAFER BARRIER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
Official Release

FRED NATION: Welcome to this news conference at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. My name is Fred Nation, Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Indy Racing League. Both the Speedway and the League are very pleased that you came around and graced us with your presence for this very important occasion and very important announcement. There will be short statements from each of our gentlemen at the front followed by questions and answers. After that, assuming it’s not raining after that, we will immediately board buses right outside. Right outside there are buses out here to go down to the first turn where you can see the new wall barrier. If it is raining, we will remain in the room and do one-on-ones. Then play it by ear. We will still take you down to the wall. You may not be able to get out of the buses. Right now it’ fine, but it’s May and unpredictable in Indianapolis. Before we get to the business of the day, I would like to note the cooperation of any individuals, organizations and businesses who have played a part in making this new wall barrier come to fruition. Among those we would like to include in our thanks for the services, donated services are Delphi, Mark I Composites, Petty Enterprises, Ford Motorsports, Roush Racing, Ganassi Racing, Petree Racing, Henry Motorsports, Penske South Racing, Dodge Motorsports, all of the teams of the Indy Racing League, Daimler Chrysler through Dodge Motorsports, Ford Racing, GM Racing, Firestone and Al Speyer in particular, and a gentleman who is now here, John Pierce, an Indy Racing League safety consultant who has been very vital in the production of where we are today, Dr. Henry Bock, who is the director of medical services for Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Dr. Bock, are you here? Thank you. And a special welcome to Leo Mehl, former executive director Indy Racing League vice president of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, who got all this process started with Tony George and the George family in 1997. Our first speaker today is the president and CEO of both the Indy Racing League and Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Tony George. Tony.

TONY GEORGE: Thank you, Fred. If a life without risk is not worth living, and a day without challenge is not worth facing, the business of motorsports certainly provides opportunity for both on a daily basis. How one deals with each determines the strength of one's character and leadership. I would like to recognize and congratulate everyone that you will hear from today, as well as those who Fred mentioned in the introduction for their outstanding leadership. Indianapolis Motor Speedway has, for nearly a century, had as its hallmark, automotive and safety innovation. Today is another example as we formally preview the steel and foam energy reduction wall that we believe is part of motorsports' future. And if I may use the acronym SAFER, I believe that's just exactly what it describes. SAFER wall has been installed in all four corners and outer corners of Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the 86th running of the Indianapolis 500. And it's going to give us an opportunity to develop, you know, some real-world experience with the design, material and principles that we have been working on developing for the last couple of years. And it's been an interesting process for me. I have watched it develop. I've seen the hard work and dedication of everybody who has worked on this, and it's exciting. I think that Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Indianapolis 500, given the format, offers the perfect opportunity to develop it. It gives us two weeks of practice leading up to the event. The opportunity to see what characteristics this device might have. We hope that it proves to be an answer to a concern of many here at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for both the Indy cars and for the stock cars. But I think that each day we learn more about it, and we're looking forward to the month of May starting this weekend. It goes without saying this would not be possible without the University of Nebraska. They have been an outstanding partner in this, and I am very proud to be associated with them. As well as NASCAR, who I think has shown a lot of leadership, as well. I think back in 2000, when we first really broached with them what we were working on, they wholeheartedly embraced what we are doing, maybe not as publicly as some would like, but privately, and with the right amount of prudence and judgment. And with their support, and that of Nebraska, we have been able to move this process forward. So with that, I would like to continue the program by turning it over to you.

NATION: Tony, join us over here. We're going to unveil a line drawing of how this wall is constructed. And you all should have a copy of it. Thank you, Tony.

GEORGE: I haven't seen it.

NATION: He’s seen the real thing, though. Does it look like it? Now it's my pleasure to introduce Gary Nelson, the director of NASCAR competition. As Tony said, NASCAR has been a cooperating partner in this endeavor since 2000. We appreciate you being here today, Gary, and the stage is yours.

GARY NELSON: Thank you, Fred. NASCAR is so proud to be part of this project and see it move to the next level, real racetrack testing of a SAFER wall. And when we look back, there's a lot of people that we need to thank, and a lot of people that put in a lot of hard work over the last several years into the project. The car owners that Fred mentioned on the NASCAR side put in their racecars, real racecars off the racetrack that we took to the University of Nebraska, where Dean Sicking and his group ran them into the wall. So it was -- we learned so much working with Tony George, Brian Barnhart and their staff, the people at University of Nebraska. Everything has really elevated the level of knowledge of what happens when a car crashes. Now, we have a long way to go, but we're very excited to be part of it and we're looking forward to the next steps.

NATION: Thank you, Gary. Our next speaker is Brian Barnhart, vice president of operations with Indy Racing League, who has been involved with the project since the beginning, and he will talk about the history of the project and how we got where we are today.

BRIAN BARNHART: Thank you, Fred. Good afternoon everyone. I will, as Fred mentioned, give you a brief timeline and history of the development of the barrier to the point where we are today. It began in 1997 under the leadership and guidance of Leo Mehl, the executive director of Indy Racing League. Leo formed a safety committee for the Indy Racing League, and one of the projects on the agenda was to look into the possibility of creating an energy-absorbing barrier. That safety committee consisted of John Pierce, technical and safety consultant to the Indy Racing League, Les Mactaggart, safety consultant and technical consultant to Indy Racing, Henry Bock, our medical director, Phil Casey, our technical director and myself. We started to move forward with a project that eventually became known as the PEDS Barrier and installed on the inside wall of Turn 4 in May 1998. The wall was first hit at the IROC race in August of 1998 by Arie Luyendyk in an IROC car, and it quickly identified a couple of things. Obviously, I think the need for such a barrier, because I think the barrier in fact probably helped keep Arie from receiving serious injuries, yet at the same time it also identified several issues and concerns with the wall that we had developed. Obviously, there was a concern with the method of attachment to the wall. It created a debris field for oncoming cars when it came off. We were actually, in many ways, very fortunate that the first impact on that wall was during an IROC race when there are only 12 cars on the track. We put the wall up on an inside wall, thinking, to be honest with you, that it would probably be an area for a secondary impact. As it turned out, it was a primary impact with Arie's IROC car. It showed issues of snagging and pocketing the car. It had a high rebound angle and propelled him back out into the line of oncoming racecars. Again, the method of attachment created -- it failed and the pieces came off the wall and created a very serious debris field for oncoming cars. So it quickly identified the complexity of the issues of what we were dealing with. At that time, Leo moved us forward and realized that this is probably something way beyond, from an engineering standpoint, the safety committee's capabilities. At that point in time, we were put in contact with the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and their Midwest Roadside Safety Facility, which is one of the nation's leaders in highway safety barrier applications. We contacted Dr. Dean Sicking and Ron Fowler and their staff, and started to work on an energy-absorbing barrier. That has obviously taken a long time to develop because of the complexities involved. A PEDS-2 variation put up for May '99 also impacted, however in a much lighter manner, during the month of May in '99 by Hideshi Matsuda. It was a much more minor impact, as he had lost control trying to enter the pits. The wall had made several improvements and that was the two times that the original PEDS wall had been impacted. In September of 2000, as we had continued to development with the University of Nebraska, we were at a point, Tony George and Indianapolis Motor Speedway, very much in a position of several other track owners and promoters out there running both open-wheel cars and stock cars on their facility. We were comfortable with the progress that we had made at that point, and we were certainly ready at that point in time to bring NASCAR into the program. At the September Richmond race in 2000, I sat down with Mike Helton and Gary Nelson explained the process where we were at. They were very much interested in moving forward. Had been a tremendous help in providing the stock cars and the fender cars that had been used to continue the progressive crash testing that has taken place in 2000, 2001 and in the spring of 2002. That has led us through the point where we are, the final test had been completed at the University of Nebraska in April 2002. As Fred said, I would also like to thank all the IRL teams, and especially Delphi. Delphi has been outstanding in their cooperation throughout the entire process. Firestone for providing the tires to test the cars on and Indy Racing League staff, Dr. Henry Bock, Phil Casey Les Mactaggart, John Pierce, they've got an awful lot of hours invested in this and lot of work and energy and research and development in doing this. That's all been spearheaded, of course, by Tony George and Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The goal of this barrier, one thing I would say, first of all, in trying and put into your guys head, it's been something that's obviously been in the forefront of the media for quite some time. One thing I would certainly like to stress to you guys, as you can see by the drawing, when you go out and see it, it is really a misnomer to attach the word soft to this in any way, shape, or form. There is not anything soft about an impact barrier for racecars. When you're talking about racecars of the velocities that you're dealing with, the masses, the angles, the impact forces and the cars compositions of today, a soft barrier is absolutely inappropriate and the wrong way to go. The proper term that needs to be used, and our goal was to create an energy-absorbing barrier. And we have gone to a point right now where our goal with this barrier is to reduce the forces seen by the car and the driver to an area that the driver is less likely to be injured. There are still going to be injuries with this wall, I mean, racing is an inherently dangerous sport. But as Tony said, it is consistent with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway since its inception in 1909 to continue to be a leader in the automotive industry and technology and safety. This is the next evolution, and something we're very proud of.

NATION: Thank you, Brian. Our next speaker, Dr. Dean Sicking from University of Nebraska. He has with him two gentlemen who are seated over here, Ron Fowler, principal investigator for Midwest Roadside Safety Facility, and John Rohde, co-principal investigator and associate professor of civil engineering. They'll be available for questions also afterwards. Dr. Dean Sicking, Director of Midwest Roadside Safety Facility, and he is now going to tell you about this particular wall and how it works.

DR. DEAN SICKING: I want to start out by talking about the process. Any time you go to develop a barrier and do a design of this magnitude, it winds up being a very large team. Of course, the leader of the team being Tony any George and his crew, Phil Casey, Brian Barnhart. I really enjoyed working with them. And NASCAR really supported us a great deal with Steve Peterson, Gary Nelson. A couple other people with the University of Nebraska, which is our design team, I would like to give recognition to Ron Faller and John Rohde and Dr. John Reed and Jim Holloway, who have been instrumental in the development of this new design. What I want to do right now with the videotape, and hopefully it has audio dubbed onto it, summarize the development process. I think we have a six-minute video. Can we run the video? I want to summarize the development of the energy absorbing system by IRL. First generation of this system is called the PEDS Barrier, polyethylene energy dissipating system. And the design was developed by IRL engineers and installed on the inside of Turn 4 at the Indianapolis 500. And the first impact was by Arie Luyendyk. This vehicle impacted the barrier about 133 miles an hour, 37 degrees. As you can see, it's a very severe impact. Although the energy absorbing system functioned and dissipated the energy of the impact, it did cause the vehicle to careen across the track at a high angle and distributed much of the barrier out into the track, which created significant problems for bystanders as the debris is knocked into the stands, and also for other drivers on the track. Although the barrier did help save Arie's life, it created some other problems. After that impact, Tony George decided that it was time to find a consultant research group that could offer advice and guidance in the design of an energy absorbing system. And the PEDS-2 Barrier was developed. The PEDS-2 Barrier functions on the same basic principal as the PEDS 1 Barrier, but significantly strengthened to try to increase its energy dissipation characteristic and control the debris field that was generated by the first impact, as you can see by the impact by Hideshi Matsuda during Indianapolis 500. The debris field was eliminated significantly, improved energy dissipation. The barrier worked much better. We then moved back onto our test track to begin to test this system and others to try to develop a design that could effectively dissipate the energies from high-speed impact. One of the things we looked at was high-density polyethylene skin system, as you see here. It uses high-density polyethylene sheets as the energy dissipation mechanism, and then a high-density skin on the surface. Notice the significant pocketing around these sheet energy absorbers. The pocketing causing significant longitudinal and lateral decelerations. It literally slows the front of the car down, pulls it into the barrier, thereby increasing the risk to injury of the driver. Notice how this vehicle instead of being straightened, the front of the vehicle is actually stopped it causes the vehicle to spin out, increasing the risk of injury to the occupants. This was a behavior our analysis showed that occurred any time we had a high-density polyethylene skin associated with discrete energy absorber, either polyethylene tube or polyethylene sheet. Any of those discrete energy absorbers would allow this significant pocket. Based on that result, included that if we wanted to use the high-density polyethylene skin, we had to move to a distributed foam energy absorbing system that would eliminate that high degree of pocketing. We then began to test with passenger cars. This is a conventional passenger car impacting at 100 miles per pour, 20 degrees. As you can see, the barrier doesn't deform very much. It doesn't provide a great deal of energy dissipation. But we still see some degree of pocketing around the vehicle as it impacts that polyethylene skin. Notice the pocketing right at the front of the load. There's significant angle of the polyethylene sheet relative to the front of the car, and that's slowing the impact side of the car down and pulling the car into the barrier. We then tested the same system with an open-wheel race car. And, again, we didn't see a great deal of energy dissipation in this impact, but the pocketing was somewhat less with this vehicle than it was with the passenger car. And notice the very flat trajectory. So there were some advantages of this system. It did help limit some of the lateral acceleration and the vehicle trajectory was very good. But we were very concerned about pocketing we observed in both of the first two tests. We then went to a steel skin system. The principal here is to provide a tubular steel wall with tremendous bending strength. The bending strength of the wall element will prevent it from wrapping around the front of the car and virtually eliminate the pocketing. As you see here, there's no pocketing of this vehicle inside this barrier. We also coated the surface of this barrier with zinc rich paint. The zinc provides a lubricant, which further reduces the friction between the vehicle from the barrier. By reducing the friction, we reduced the longitudinal deceleration, which, again, as I mentioned previously, longitudinal deceleration pulls the car into the barrier, increasing the acceleration of the driver. The performance of this barrier was greatly improved, and we saw a dramatic reduction for this crash in the lateral accelerations and longitudinal accelerations when compared to a similar crash with a concrete barrier. As you can see, this barrier incorporates foam energy absorber, spaced foam energy absorbers basically tuned for the lightweight open-wheel cars in IRL racing. We then needed to adjust this barrier, the same barrier system, so that it would work with the heavier Winston Cup stock car vehicles, so almost twice as much. So our first attempt involved using virtually a solid foam system and the same steel skin. And as you can see here, although there was some modest deprivation of the wall, there was very little energy management in this system. It was -- it had significantly more energy absorbing foam than was necessary for this vehicle. But, again, there was no pocketing and the vehicle longitudinal accelerations were very low, and the lateral accelerations were reduced somewhat. Continuing on in this research, we then used computer modeling and component testing to refine the barrier design and reduce the amount of energy absorbers used in the wall. What you see here is another test of this barrier. Notice how much more lateral movement we get in the wall and significantly improved energy management in this system. Also, notice that there is virtually no pocketing in this barrier system in this crash test. Again, the vehicle exit angle is dramatically reduced compared to the Luyendyk crash to the barrier, which has created significantly improved performance. We then continued with our development in testing and tested the barrier with a higher-speed impact using an open-wheel car. What we're highlighting here is the joint design. Notice this is up, the joint, attempting to provide maximum loaded on the joint with the concern that it may open up and allow some snagging of vehicle components in the joint. The joint is designed to close up during an impact as the barrier moves back. The gap between the adjacent segments is eliminated as the barrier moves backward, thereby precluding the opportunity for any snagging at the joint. Another concern we had with the barrier was potential for significantly delaying the race if it was damaged during a severe impact, such as the one shown here. We tested this design several different times under extremely high-energy impacts and found that the functionality of the barrier was maintained, and there would be never any reason to stop or delay the race to repair the barrier. We believe the barrier that was developed under Tony George and Indy Racing League leadership in cooperation with NASCAR will provide significant improvement in safety for both open-wheel and stock car racing venues. We look forward to this barrier being implemented on a number of tracks so that we can get some real-world crash experience.

NATION: Thank you, Dean Sicking. Our final speaker is Kevin Forbes. Kevin is the director of engineering and construction for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He has supervised the installation of this new energy-absorbent wall system, the SAFER system.

KEVIN FORBES: Thank you, Fred. Good afternoon. Well, I think that the real test of any brand-new device that has been developed and tested is its applicability to real-life situations. As we have been proceeding with the fabrication, construction and installation of Dr. Sicking's invention, we found it to be exactly that. Very, very applicable in all ways in its installation. Obviously, one of the big concerns in any racetrack is how long it might have to be down during the installation of this device, and it was designed to be installed quickly, and we found out that exactly, that it can be installed very quickly. There's preparation work that had to be done ahead of time, but that all can be scheduled very nicely with other racetrack activities. So what we found is that our racetrack actually had zero downtime for the installation of this barrier. I think that's very important for other racetracks that may want to consider something like this or this device in the future. The other thing that we found out, and I think that is very important for this application, is that if in fact there is a catastrophic damage done to one of the sections, it was also designed to actually replace individual modules or sections of this wall. And, again, we found out that that's very much the case. That's very important during racing time, where if we do have a section of this damaged and it's felt appropriate to change out the section, it can be done so virtually in the same amount of time that the incident itself has been cleaned up. Third thing that we have discovered with this is that it is very applicable to other racetracks. That the selection of materials are such that they are readily available in any other part of the country. Although I think we had probably, in my mind, one of the premier structural steel fabricators and erectors to help us in to fabricate and install this. I think that any company of their caliber across the United States can do the very same thing at any other racetrack. I think that it would be very easy to kind of take these details that we have used here and to refine them so that they would fit other racetrack geometries, racetrack bankings. One of the things that we have found out is that we had to make some very minor adjustments to ensure that we did not negate any sight lines. I think that's something we have been learning here over the year, we are becoming very sensitive to spectator sight lines. This is very adaptable to any racetrack with sight lines. I think -- in summary, I think this, as far as the installation of this barrier, as far as the expected outcome, I think it's everything that we felt and hoped it would be.

NATION: Thank you, Kevin. Now we will open the floor for some questions. There will be a transcript of this. We ask you each to identify yourself and speak into the microphone for the questions so our transcriptionist can capture it. First question.

Q: Bruce Martin. Could you explain how you were able to keep the bolts to protruding into the skin of the car and possibly becoming a hazard?

NATION: Is this to Kevin?

SICKING: We took out the bolts. There are no bolts on the face other than at the very leading transitional edge. And if those bolts become a problem, those can be replaced with recessed countersunk bolts to totally eliminate any. If you see a picture that has a bulkhead, it’s on the very up extreme transition where you're still on the tangent course of the track. We really don't expect this section of the barrier to get hit. All the rest of the sections are bolted together with all the attachments in the back of the joint.

Q: What's the alloy of the bolt?

SICKING: A 325 bolt, which is a common construction bolt -- high strength.

NATION: David Poole.

Q: David Poole. Can you talk about how much it would cost, or whether it would be economically feasible for smaller racetracks that don't compete on the level of the Indy or Daytona?

BARNHART: David, one of the things we've been saying all along in the development process of the wall at this point in time we have kind of come across a number of about $175 per linear foot for the wall. However, I think Kevin can probably address that. And in the early stages and development of this wall and real-world applications, you know, that's still -- the final number probably still yet to be determined. Under the circumstances and the short notification that the Speedway went under to put up the wall this April, I think Kevin can probably address where we stand from the cost.

FORBES: I think it's -- and, Brian, I have to kind of echo your comment. It's very variable. For example, I'll give you one, for our track, which is a very large track, the radius of the turns are 840 feet. The radius at the wall is right at 900 feet. Which allows us to erect this wall in tangent -- in straight sections of tube, structural steel tube straight pieces 20 feet modules. Now, if we were to go -- really, if we ever go to any smaller track, then I would say probably the mile and a half tracks now down, that these tubes would actually have to be rolled to the radius of the racetrack. That would somewhat increase the cost. As you get to smaller and smaller tracks, the radiuses become tighter, details will probably have to be changed somewhat to accommodate for tighter turns. As you go to tracks that have much higher banking, again, some of the installation costs might be different there because you don't have the ease of installation or flat of track like ours. So the costs are really going to be variable from racetrack to racetrack, as the design will, in fact, be variable from racetrack to racetrack. The cost that we have right now really aren't very realistic, only simply because the trigger was pulled on this project with very, very little notice, and so we probably have a lot of cost involved in just simply acceleration to get the project done on time.

NATION: Derek.

Q: Derek Daly. Speed Channel. Kevin, is this design proprietary to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, or would you make the design and all information available to other tracks should they want to copy what you have done?

FORBES: Derek, I think I will turn this over to Brian since this is kind of -- at this point it's an IRL device and I think I'll let Brian answer that.

BARNHART: The work that we have been doing with the University of Nebraska and the contract that we have right now, the Indy Racing League owns the rights to racetrack applications for this. Should this design be utilized in a real-world application, the University of Nebraska owns the rights to do that. From a racetrack application standpoint, we will make the design available to every track owner/operator out there. The designs are certainly available to them. It is not our intention to profit from this. It is certainly going to be made available to them if they can adapt it with the unique characteristics of their racetrack. The way we look at it is safety innovation, as this is not something proprietary, certainly to be shared because it's in the best interest of motor racing.

NATION: Chris Jenkins.

Q: Chris Jenkins. USA Today. I am not sure who best to answer this question. I am wondering if there is any way to express your expectation for this wall, either in it's ability to absorb energy or prevent injuries?

BARNHART: I think -- touching on that a little bit, I think our goal is to reduce the forces seen by the car and the driver to an area that make him less likely to be injured. However, the one thing that is a constant in crashes is the variables. That may sound funny, but there are so many variables involved in every accident, from angle of impact to velocities to mass of the car to car construction and composition. It's very difficult to say under which scenario how much the forces are reduced. It's just a goal, obviously, when you create this situation and what we tried to do in 1997 and 1998, you know, was good intention -- well intentioned. The problem was we actually created a scenario that was worse than the one that already existed. And that's -- that was the real hitch in trying to develop this wall over the next four years is to make sure that you're putting something on the wall that is not worse than what is already out there. And at this point in time, we certainly feel that in every crash that we're going to see, there will be benefits with the system in place. It just will vary so much from one crash to another and from one type of car to another.

Q: Is there anything that you can add?

SICKING: I think the way you originally phrased that question are what are your goals for the barrier. My goal is to learn a lot from this barrier. We expect that real-world crashes we're going to learn much more the next three or four weeks than we have in the last two years because again we cannot tow a car into the barrier in a non-tracking or spinning, yawing condition. And many of the races, the real-world crashes are in that attitude. And our hope is that within the next three to four weeks, we will be able to quantify or understand the performance of this barrier much better.

NATION: Bruce Martin.

Q: Bruce Martin. Sports Ticker. Dr. Sicking, just to show the research that you were able to do on this, compare the passenger-car test that I am sure you performed. Can you give us like a figure how many cars you actually have crashed since this project began to try to come up with this system?

SICKING: I think our last full-scale crash test involving a race vehicle was called IRL18, which meant it was our 18th crash test. A typical system highway safety design for a longitudinal barrier like this would involve only two or three crash tests. And so we're talking about a factor of four or five over what we normally do for highway. You have to understand, we've been testing highway barriers for a lot longer than race barriers, so we learned a tremendous amount about impacts at 150 miles an hour that was quite new to us.

GEORGE: Jack, I think the interesting thing for me was when we first saw the guidance system and track and pully system, they were pulling, you know, 2-to-1 ratio at about -- I mean, how many miles an hour?

SICKING: 100 miles an hour.

GEORGE: Go into a 4-to-1 ratio. It got a lot quicker, which coincidentally it was interesting to see the speed of Dale Jr.'s impact to the wall at Fontana versus Arie's impact with the wall back in '98. Those are the kinds of the speeds that got this thing rolling.

SICKING: Just as a comment. We have analyzed a lot of crashes as best we could to determine impact conditions, and still the best analysis we could make the worse case impact we could analyze was Arie's wreck at the IROC race. 170 miles an hour. We have tested well above that. Getting to that speed, we wound up having to be 6-to-1 cable-versus-tow system. I learned a lot more about towing systems than I ever wanted to know.

Q: Dave Calabro, Channel 13, Indianapolis. Gary, this question is for you. When can we see NASCAR applying this, this season, next season, or is it even on the schedule?

NELSON: The project has been taking steps, They're excited all along as it goes to the next level. And the step today is to announce it being installed at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Now, what we're going to do, NASCAR standpoint, is what we've really been doing all along, monitor the process, see how it's working. Understand what we call the real world. You know testing in controlled circumstances at airport runway in the middle of Nebraska, you can't do a lot. We've come a long way with it. Now seeing -- like Dean says -- a car that is spinning as it hits, the different kinds of things. We really want to pay close attention to it and work very close with Tony, Brian, and University of Nebraska and help move this to the next level. But when, how, that has -- we have to get a little more data to make those kinds of answers.

NATION: Chris.

Q: National Speed Sport News. Any figures on G-lead reductions at the driver level with or without the wall?

BARNHART: Again, I think, Chris, at that point in time there's just so many variables, because in the crash tests we have done, I think we've ranged between 100 miles an hour and I think our fastest, Dean, is 158 or -- yeah, 153 miles an hour. And the angles have been between 20 degrees and 25 1/2 degrees. And when you add in the different masses of the car between the stock cars and the others, the numbers have been kind of all over the place, Chris. So it would be difficult to give any kind of sign. Just suffice it to say we are seeing a reduction in the forces, which was our original goal with the design of the wall.

NATION: Robin Miller.

Q: Robin Miller. ESPN. Could you just talk about was there any one thing that you had to overcome that was the toughest thing, whether it was snagging, stymied at all.

SICKING: To be honest with you, our biggest challenge was getting the car up to speed. Being able to control the car get it up to 150 miles per hour, deliver the energy into the wall. We only have a 3,000-foot runway, and we had to get the car up to 150 miles an hour in that distance. That was the biggest challenge. With regard to the design of the barrier, there were a tremendous number of challenges from the material. Identifying the right material, identifying the right energy absorber and tuning of the absorber for the various vehicles for both the stock car and the race vehicle, the open-wheel car. Those are very difficult problems, and we continue to work on them.

NATION: Derek.

Q: Derek Daly. Speed Channel. Brian, this might be for you. In the press release it said the barriers are in place for practice. Does that mean that they may not be in position for the race? Is there any reason why it just says practice?

BARNHART: I think that's probably just semantics of the statement they're in place, meaning they're going to be in place May 5th, Opening Day. Certainly our intention, they're going to be in place and continue to move forward with the design as it goes throughout the month. I mean, it is our intention to have them in place all month long, including the race.

NATION: Brian, let me follow up and ask if there were problems with the wall at practice, what would you do at that point?

BARNHART: Obviously, we would respond accordingly. As Gary mentioned, obviously NASCAR is going to be monitoring our progress throughout the month. I certainly don't want to give him too many chances to get a whole lot of information from it. But let's just face it, it is the month of May. There will be impacts into the wall. And if we do determine that there are issues with this wall that cannot be addressed with the current design, then as quickly as it went up, it can actually come down quicker, and we can address it under those situations. We certainly don't anticipate that we're very excited about the future and the prospects of this wall and certainly moving forward as we go.

Q: Brian, just to follow up with that. Are there any plans -- I guess, this would be for Tony or Gary as well. Are any plans to keep this in place for any event other than Indy 500?

BARNHART: Obviously, we have kept all of our partners, and Tony probably would be best to address this, at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Obviously, running NASCAR Winston Cup Series with Brickyard 400 and Formula One car here in September United States Grand Prix. All the bodies have been notified of the progress, what we're doing, where we're going. Each sanctioning body will make their determination whether they will use the barrier at their event based on the proceeds. At this point, Indy Racing League, Indianapolis Motor Speedway chose to put it up for the start of practice at the Motor Speedway for Indianapolis 500. Our intention is to leave it all up all month, including the race, if we get positive feedback. Continue to slowly develop the barrier. At that point, NASCAR will make the decision whether they go with it in August. And, of course, September the United States Grand Prix. The FIA gets two events under their belt to see if they want it in place for USGP.

GEORGE: I also think that two Formula One teams have expressed interest in providing the wall. May even do some further testing in the near term.

NATION: Question.

Q: Dr. Sicking, this to me is the most significant barrier development regarding automobiles I have seen since I have been watching safety. Can you take us down the road? I can see other people experimenting on their own with this type of barrier. What interest has there been from the National Highway Transportation? Just happen to pass an exit two days ago where snagging took a very small car and made a bad accident out of it. Can you take us five years down the road?

SICKING: This barrier -- again, highways is where we make a living. We do most of our work on highway safety devices. And the barrier we developed for this racing application is a little on the pricey side for highway usage. We don't expect a widespread application. Most of the problems that this barrier would be designed to protect would be when you have a very hazardous location, for example, a sharp curve inside of a tunnel or in depressed area through urban areas. When you take the freeway through urban areas, a lot of times they recess the highway and have these vertical concrete walls right next to the travelway. Those situations, yeah, some locations where there's very high accident frequency with number of injuries and fatalities, those would be applications for this barrier. The other thing that we can do is apply these basic principals to our current barrier research, and we do barrier research for 11 states ranging from Connecticut to Texas to Montana, and we do development for all of those states, and I am sure that this work will have a positive impact on the barriers used in those 11 states.

NATION: Chris.

Q: Chris Jenkins. USA Today. For the past couple years everybody we've been talking to said the soft walls are two or four years away. Did this come together a little faster than you guys thought? If so, what happened to make it come along?

BARNHART: I don't know if it's any faster. I think Dean can probably address this as well, since we took the project to them after Arie's crash in August of '98. Obviously, that tells you you're talking about a four-year time span to get to the point where we are now. And this, by no means, is going to be the finished product. It's the first introduction into a real-world application, and as data is gathered from each incident, we will continue to evolve and development the wall and continue to improve it hopefully. I think Dean can probably address a little bit more about the timeline with the introduction of any safety device.

SICKING: Actually, this has been pretty slow. We had ran into a lot of problems, and one of the biggest ones was that we had the snowiest winter that I can remember a couple of winters ago that really slowed this project down. I think it shut our program down for about four months because our site was covered with snow. Hard to get a vehicle up to 150 miles an hour on the snow. So it didn't go as fast as we would have liked, but we're very pleased with the outcome and we've enjoyed the support that IRL -- and patience that IRL showed with us whenever our site was down for four months due to snow.

NATION: Who's got it. Go ahead.

Q: How difficult would it be for -- to balance the demand for getting these things up with the sort of take it slow kind of evaluate as you go along. Obviously, if this is a successful barrier, there will be a calamity for this to be up at virtually every racetrack where motorsports competes yesterday.

SICKING: I think the people who control that are you. The demand for this wall is going to be controlled by the press more than anyone else.

GEORGE: General design for the Speedway here, again, it may have applications in other similar types of facility. We don't really know how this particular design will -- high bank or smaller racetracks. A lot of variables yet to be sorted through and final determination. Certainly, road courses and things like that. Certain tracks with different corners require a whole different thought process, and this is not the answer to all racing concerns.

SICKING: I think Brian mentioned it earlier, every racetrack is different. When we go to a high-bank, short-radius curve, that's a very difficult change in our design. We've never tested a barrier on a radius at all, much less 300 or 400 foot radius that is not very -- not uncommon in NASCAR venues. So there are a number of significant challenges left to adapt this barrier to some of those tracks.

NATION: We will have two final questions. Dick Mittman and Howdy Bell. Then we will do one-on-ones.

Q: Dr. Sicking, often more than one car hits the wall at the same time and accidents during race. Sometimes instantaneously, other times within a fraction of a second. Has that been tested and what compression will the first impact have an effect on the second impact?

SICKING: We can't tow two cars at once. So we never tested that. We thought about that in terms of looking at the accident histories. And if you go back and look at the accident histories, with the exception of perhaps Earnhardt, most of the fatalities are single-vehicle into the wall primary impact. I think Earnhardt would be more of an exception to that. When you look at his impact in particular, the overall energy of that impact with both vehicles combined, was still below the severity and energy level we've subjected this barrier to. So although I think you have a good point and this is something we hope to learn a lot about, it's not something we can test. And it's something that we hope we've anticipated properly, but we need to see something happen in the real world to help us understand it better.

BARNHART: As you can see by the video that we have, if you have a multi-car crash, obviously. The first driver in the wall is going to get the benefits of the wall. As you can see how quickly the wall returned to its original position, a second driver may not get 100 percent of the benefits, but he is going to get a significant portion of the benefits of this wall. So even in a worst-case scenario, the first driver receiving the benefits of it, the second one getting a significant portion of them. That, again, is a better scenario than the one that currently exists.

Q: Howdy Bell. WXIR. You mentioned several times you're going to monitor them. How do you monitor them? Mount cameras, electronic equipment for the month of May? How does that work?

BARNHART: We will do a little bit of that. We have -- obviously, with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway we have cameras available using the technology involved with the race control booth from the United States Grand Prix camera. We're going to locate some of those cameras to those areas we anticipate high-probability impact areas just based on historical data. Also use the crash data from the cars themselves. Obviously, go out and inspect the wall after the accident and just continue to monitor just as we do after we pull the test cars at Nebraska, we will do basically the same process on track now.

NATION: Thank you. Just to reiterate, Tony George said the Indianapolis Motor Speedway prides itself at being a leader in innovation. This is not the first or last development Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Indy Racing League have deployed this wall in the real-world testing environment while all the world is watching here during May. That shows the confidence we have in it, but at the same time, there are questions you have yet to be answered. These questions are going to take place and be answered right in front of your eyes. We hope that you all keep that in mind as we go through the month of May. Right now, we're going to take about 15 minutes for one-on-ones and assess what the weather situation is. And if we could, perhaps some could be done in here and some out in the lobby. Spread out a little bit. Thank you very much for coming. We will make an announcement in a few minutes about the buses.