Those safer barriers were invented because those cars hit the walls head on compared to drag cars running parallel to the walls. On the big Speedways, they don't run them the full length of the straightaway.
Looking at this picture. The pink foam looks like extruded polystyrene. The pink color is the marketing color for the Owens Corning
Formula brand. Perhaps tieing in with the best cancer awareness car/crew colors.
The wall to the right looks like the concrete wall. So what is the left wall materisl. Looks like the racing surface is the left side . So the impact crushes the foam toward the concrete wall.
And what are the vertical posts on the left. Are they foam?
But look at the width of that total wall and it would require two walls. Can't fit that on existing drag strips. Cost to move concrete wall and add everything else would be very expensive.
Require these walls and you won't see ticket prices go down. Someone has to pay for it.
The magnitude and type of impact BF sustained isn't that common. Even so, except for a few bumps and bruises it appears she will make the next race. I don't see where a call for action as necessary. My concern would be that all that foam, collapsing walls, or shock material would grab a dragster or altered like a hook in a situation where the racer would normally scrape, brush or simply bounce off the wall and continue down course. I don't recall any serious injury or death associated with hitting a K-wall parallel to the track. Most of the damage to drivers has been at guardrail openings, armco style guardrail impacts, racers being launched over the walls and hitting stuff outside of the racing surface or racers running off the end of the tracks.
1/8 mile for the shutdown area.
I was at E-town when Brandon had his accident and went over the wall into the grass. If you look at the videos, he over-corrected not straightening his car out before hitting the pedal again. Brittany did the same. Many do it under pressure.
Similar to this, I’ve wondered why there has never been a contraption to cover the track when it rains. Something cheap that goes over both lanes that is sloped/pitched to one side that has a drain????