What else can improve racing safety? Education, officials say, and time.

"It's the same way we did it at the upper levels," said Fisher at the NASCAR R&D Center. "You've got to educate people. These aren't secrets anymore."

Fisher said that's already happening throughout racing. The R&D Center shares its research throughout the different levels of NASCAR, as well as with other racing sanctioning bodies. "We're all smart enough to realize we all live in a pretty big glass house," Fisher said. "What is their problem today may be our problem tomorrow."

Officials say they hope change also will come naturally as young racers come into a sport that has changed its perspective on safety. Although NASCAR's older drivers struggled initially with initiatives such as the HANS device, a driver like 20-year-old Joey Logano knows only of racing with better safety equipment. Recent initiatives in the SCCA and NHRA also will become second nature, officials say they hope, and the culture those initiatives promote could eventually trickle down to smaller tracks and the drivers who race on them.

"The danger potential in racing has been very real to drivers my age," said Jordan Anderson, 19, who wears a HANS device as he races short tracks across the Carolinas, including Carolina Speedway in Gastonia. "We grew up hearing about the deaths of drivers like Earnhardt, Kenny Irwin, Blaise Alexander and Adam Petty, so that really brought that to our attention. We've got all this technology and awareness, so we need to take advantage of it."

"It is improving," said SCCA president Dahnert. "You see old pictures of spectators sitting on hay bales, and you think: 'How did they ever think that was a good idea?'"

For others, the will to be safer will come the same way as it did for NASCAR in 2001 - with the death of a colleague shaking them into change. "We know we don't want to go through what we've been through in the past," said Ramsey Poston, NASCAR's managing director of corporate communications.

But without that incentive, the choice isn't always so clear. John Metzger considered a HANS device, said his wife, D.J., at their home in Cross Lane, W.Va.. "We talked about safety a lot," she said. "Racing scares these guys - at least if you're smart or a family man."

John was both. He had an adult son, Craig, and a young granddaughter. Craig was his crew chief. They worked together on cars in the three-stall garage at the house, and they traveled across the country to race at the SCCA National level on weekends.

John had been racing 35 years - motorcycles, Corvettes and, most recently, the C Sport Racer in SCCA races. Last year, John purchased a HANS device, his wife said. But he was a stocky guy, and when he tried it out in his small race car, he had difficulty seeing his controls.

Downing, the HANS co-founder, said that he also drives C Sport Racers, and drivers of all sizes wear his device in those cars.

D.J. Metzger said John thought he had two bad choices - wear the device and lose some visibility inside his car, or risk safety by going with a simple neck collar. He left the HANS device in his trailer.

"Would it have saved his life?" she said. "Probably."

Observer researcher Maria David contributed.

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