SEPTEMBER 27, 2024
With third season as a Cadillac GTP factory team on the horizon, AXR’s Gary Nelson looks back at the team’s extraordinary record…
By Grace Houghton, Hagerty Media
When Dale Earnhardt died in February 2001, the racing world thought they had the answers. After all, they built the cars. They drove the cars. Who knew racing better than they did? The data told a different story: Earnhardt was the 10th driver in 11 years to die in a NASCAR crash. One afternoon in early March, in desperation, NASCAR’s head of safety, Gary Nelson, called a meeting with three men. One was an expert in crash protection, another a USAF doctor, the third a civil engineer. I’ve got a limited budget and a limited amount of time, Nelson told them. What can I get to work on first to get the most progress? The men said they would go have dinner, and tomorrow they would tell Nelson what they came up with.
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