The crash, which occurred during an Xfinity Series season-opening race, was an echo of an incident last year in which Kevin Harvick criticized the speedway after crashing on the final lap of the 500 and hitting an unprotected interior wall.
“The tracks, for the most part, don’t listen to really anything unless it’s profitable for their shareholders,” Harvick said at the time, pointing to a $400 million improvement project at the speedway that did not include installation of energy-absorbing Safer barriers — called soft walls — along all of the inside walls to protect drivers.
Busch, too, crashed into an unprotected interior wall. In addition to the 500, he will probably miss several other races.
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After the crash, the speedway’s president, Joie Chitwood III, announced that the track would install soft walls everywhere. He even promised to have tire packs put up along the inside walls in time for Sunday’s race.
“The Daytona International Speedway did not live up to its responsibility today,” Chitwood said at a news conference. “We should have had Safer barrier there. We did not.”
He added: “We’re going to fix that right now. The Daytona International Speedway is going to install Safer barrier on every inch at this property. This is not going to happen again.”
Busch’s injury occurred when his No. 54 Toyota was hit by another car during one of those multicar wrecks so common at the speedway. His racecar veered into the infield and slammed head-on into an unprotected wall.
Busch attempted to get out of his racecar but ultimately needed help and was placed on a stretcher, his right leg in an air cast. He was taken to Halifax Medical Center, where it was determined that he had sustained a compound fracture of his lower right leg and a midfoot fracture of his left foot. He had surgery Saturday night.
Busch, who races for the Joe Gibbs Racing team and is considered an annual contender for the Sprint Cup title, was scheduled to start fourth. He will be replaced in the No. 18 Toyota by the truck series veteran Matt Crafton, who will make his Sprint Cup debut.
Drivers were critical of the speedway for failing to install the barriers.
“I think we’re to the point now in Nascar we should have Safer barriers at a place like this, we’re going so fast,” said Ty Dillon, who finished third in Saturday’s race behind the winner, Ryan Reed, and Chris Buescher. “I think we could probably afford it.”
He added, “We’ve advanced so far in safety, we shouldn’t be having any crazy bad injuries.”
Others turned to Twitter to voice their concern and criticism.
“It’s beyond me why we don’t have soft walls everywhere,” the six-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson posted. Regan Smith, who was uninjured in a wreck earlier in the Xfinity race when his car flipped over on the track, wrote: “I’m genuinely furious right now. Any wall in any of the top 3 series without safer barriers is INEXCUSABLE. It’s 2015.”
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The speedway is not the only racetrack that lacks Safer barriers on all walls. Steve O’Donnell, Nascar’s executive vice president, stopped short of saying the racing series would require tracks to install soft walls.
“We will accelerate those talks with the tracks,” he said.
SUSPENSION UPHELD Kurt Busch lost two appeals of an indefinite suspension by Nascar after a finding that he had choked his former girlfriend last September in a confrontation at Dover International Speedway in Delaware.
A three-member panel initially upheld Busch’s indefinite suspension on Saturday afternoon. Busch then appealed to the National Motorsports final appeals officer, Bryan Moss, who upheld it as well.
“We are unhappy with the latest decision to deny our re-appeal, but we will continue to exhaust every procedural and legal remedy we have available to us until Kurt Busch is vindicated,” Busch’s lawyer, Rusty Hardin, said in a statement.
Sunday’s Daytona 500 will be the first Cup race without either of the Busch brothers since November 2001.
Stewart-Haas Racing will turn to Regan Smith to replace Busch in the No. 41 Chevrolet for Sunday’s race.
Busch was suspended Friday after a Delaware Family Court judge ruled that a “preponderance of the evidence” indicated that he had choked his former girlfriend Patricia Driscoll.
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