Baseball, Basketball, Football, Hockey and Golf Blog

As rookie Michael McDowell barrel-rolled across Texas Motor Speedway, one thing became clear: NASCAR’s latest safety measures are clearly working.

The soft walls and NASCAR’s new car likely saved McDowell’s life following a horrific accident that caught the attention of an industry desensitized to wrecks.

Not this time, though. Not even close.

Drivers and crews standing on pit road during Friday’s qualifying session seemed frozen in place as they watched McDowell’s car lose control entering the first turn and slam nearly straight-on into the outside wall. The vicious impact sent his car flipping eight times around the track, and the most hardened veterans stood silent as they waited for the Toyota to finally come to a stop.

“That was the hardest hit I’ve ever seen anybody take,” said two-time champion Tony Stewart, who stood silent on pit road, arms folded across his chest as he watched the car tumble. “That was a pretty impressive crash.”

It was a horrific accident and a tremendous hit, so violent that many insiders compared it to the impact that killed Dale Earnhardt in 2001. But this time, the driver hopped quickly out of the car and offered a slight wave to the anxious crowd before he was ushered into the care center for a quick checkup.

How difficult was it to see how great Davidson’s Stephen Curry played in this year’s NCAA Tournament?

Not that hard, right?

He scored a bunch of points, made a slew of great plays. It was all right there in front of us. Even the novice fan could flip on a Davidson game and immediately pick out the best player on the court.

The same can’t be said of a NASCAR race. Jeff Gordon is great, but other than driving to victory lane, how does the novice fan – or even a diehard fan, for that matter – distinguish what Gordon does from the rest of the field?

To some degree, it’s true that a NASCAR driver is only as good as the car he’s driving. But being inside the car, the driver is not visible, so we have a tough time judging his abilities. So how do you identify the talent of a driver who’s capable of wheeling a decent car – maybe a top-10 – into victory lane?

A simple way to evaluate driver talent is to look at who’s won races on a variety of track types – short tracks, road courses and restrictor-plate tracks. Each is a unique discipline and requires different techniques to win. Gordon and Tony Stewart are two drivers who have mastered all types of tracks.