What does Richard Petty think about NASCAR's safety effort?
Richard Petty was hurt so many times in a race car that a spreadsheet might be needed to list the severity and locations of his dozens of injuries.
A broken neck — twice. Both shoulders and both feet broken. A broken leg and a torn kneecap.
"And so many concussions I don't even know the number," Petty told USA TODAY Sports.
Yet he raced on.
In a driving career that lasted from 1958 to 1992, he made 1,184 Sprint Cup starts. Some of his injuries, in particular concussions, would have made him ineligible to race under NASCAR's current regulations.
As the spotlight on protecting drivers in the sport continues to shine brightly after Kyle Busch broke his leg and foot in a crash at Daytona International Speedway on Feb. 21, Petty said NASCAR generally has done a good job of emphasizing safety.
"Seeing where they started and where they are now, they've kept up with it just about as good as they could," the seven-time Cup champion said. "Nothing will ever be 100 percent safe. Many of the safety features that came along, like bars in the doors and roll bars and such, were developed by other people, then NASCAR made them mandatory for everybody. And NASCAR has come up with its own ideas, too. I think they've done a super job of trying to protect the drivers."
NASCAR accelerated its safety research after the deaths of four drivers in the span of nine months in 2000-01, including superstar and seven-time champion Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Adam Petty, Richard Petty's grandson. The most significant change since Earnhardt's death in the 2001 Daytona 500 has been the development of SAFER barriers, "soft" walls placed in front of concrete walls to cushion impact and absorb energy.
All NASCAR tracks have SAFER barriers in key locations, but some drivers have criticized tracks that don't have all exposed wall areas protected. Busch crashed into an unprotected concrete wall at Daytona International Speedway last month, igniting a flurry of negative comments from drivers and leading track officials to promise that the barriers will be added throughout the track in time for NASCAR's return in July.
"They've been proactive on a lot of stuff, now more than they were in all the other years," Petty said. "Now they're looking a lot more at the liability. Now they know if somebody breaks a fingernail, they're going to sue you. They're a lot more conscious in looking to the next step. And they miss some. They missed the safety walls at first."
The NASCAR safety culture has changed dramatically since Earnhardt's death. Research and analysis of potential safety issues go much deeper, and drivers — some of whom rejected change in car interiors — have become much more active in seeking safety advances.
Earnhardt, who died of a skull fracture after hitting the fourth-turn wall at Daytona, was among those who generally rejected fundamental changes. He fiercely opposed switching to full-faced, wrap-around helmets, favoring the open-faced variety he had used since his first days in racing.
"All of us are trapped in our environment," Petty said. "That wasn't his environment. His environment was open-faced. When they did try to get him to run a full-face helmet and other stuff, it was just foreign to him. He didn't realize the level of danger that was there. And none of us did, for that matter. If there was going to be a wreck, somebody else was going to be in it."
The driver cockpit is radically changed from Petty's racing days. Now, seats essentially wrap around the driver in a cocoon-like structure, and supports and padding protect the head area. Petty raced both with bench-like seats and standard bucket seats, typically with little refinement before safety harnesses.
"When I raced, the cars were so big we didn't need a lot of the safety features," Petty said. "The cars absorbed a lot of the hits. Now the cars are so small the wreck gets to them quicker. Now the drivers are basically sitting in a capsule. Everything is wrapped around them.
"There's no doubt it's safer, but it's very different. They're in there in such a small area, the visibility has changed. We could see everywhere and everything. All they can see is straight ahead, kind of like an old mule with blinders.
"When I drove up on somebody, I could see enough into his car that I could tell if he was checking his rear-view mirror to see where I was. I knew that he knew I was there. Now you can't see any of that. They're racing blind to a certain extent."
Follow Hembree on Twitter @mikehembree
PHOTOS: Family ties in NASCAR
