Bristol Motor Speedway Debuts Its New 'Boys, Have at It' Walls

"Boys, have at it" has become the NASCAR catchphrase of the 2010 season, and the quicker it sends last year's popular but profoundly meaningless "it is what it is" into the moldering dust bin of jargon, the better off we'll all be.

Capitalizing on the new phrase, coined by NASCAR Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton, the folks at Bristol Motor Speedway, bless their ever-promoting hearts, have come up with one of the most creative ways to exploit the "have at it" philosophy.

They're using safety to promote crashes. In doing so, they hope to bring back the Bristol of old -- the Bristol packed with hollering fans who could expect to see as many as 20 yellow flags a race.

Bristol might take us to task for so explicitly linking their use of a safety device to promoting actual crashes, but they probably won't, since, after all, they are promoters.

But what no one disputes is the fact that they have added 168 feet of SAFER barrier -- the flexible wall that has been installed at NASCAR tracks nationwide -- to narrow the width of the track coming off turns two and four. They expect the narrower exits to force the cars closer together, undoubtely causing them to rub more often, a phenomenon that has been known to trigger wrecks.

But as NASCAR President (and Bristol native) Mike Helton himself said at the beginning of the year, "if you ain't rubbin', you ain't racin'."

If you ain't rubbing, you ain't crashing, either, at least not as much. And so the new SAFER Barrier is now in place, ready to earn its stripes. Literally.

The tighter track didn't seem to bother anyone during Friday's practice session, but the true test will come Sunday.

"This is tight quarters anyway," Clint Bowyer said after Friday's practice. "You know, time will tell; maybe it won't change anything, but it looks pretty tight."

Even before Carl Edwards played disc golf with Brian Keselowski's Dodge at Atlanta 12 days ago, he was into the spirit of the new NASCAR and a more ornery Bristol.

"It sounds like they'd put a jump on the back straightaway if they could, which is fine by me if they want to try that," Edwards told the media in Atlanta on qualifying day there.

If the new SAFER barrier does not cause more crashes, Bristol may indeed have to consider a ramp, or perhaps a dip, a tunnel or a turning windmill.

Because the fact is, crashes dropped rather dramatically after the concrete track was resurfaced in the summer of 2007, a project that also widened the track by four feet and improved the racing line above the lowest groove. A one-lane road became a freeway, the drivers loved it, and yellow flags plummeted by more than 31 percent -- to an average of 9.4 per race, compared to 13.7 in the preceding decade.

"Without question, this extra four feet added room and aided in creating three and, at times, even four-wide racing," track president and general manager Jeff Byrd said in a track news release announcing the devilish new use for SAFER barriers. "However, while it is breathtaking, many of our fans have responded that we went too far, in actuality, giving too much racing room to the greatest drivers in the world."

At the same time, the new surface didn't make the racing better, at least in terms of one key indicator -- lead changes. In the decade before the new surface, Bristol's races averaged 13.7 lead changes. Since then, it's down to 11.6, although that stat was skewed dramatically in August 2008, when Edwards won a race that saw only four lead changes -- the fewest at the half-mile oval in more than 30 years.

The SAFER (Steel And Foam Energy Reduction) barrier had already been installed in the high-banked corners, but it has been extended 84 feet off of both the second and fourth turns, or 168 feet total. To be sure, it will make those sections of the wall safer for impact, but will make it tighter and possibly tougher as the drivers come off the corners.

"They paint 'em so you can see them, so that will help us," quipped Tony Stewart. "The wall is still where the wall is at. The good thing about us as drivers, after all these years of doing this, (is that it) doesn't matter where they put it, we have to stay a fraction of an inch off of it and use every bit up to it.

"I am sure it is going to make a difference, there is no doubt about it, I mean we all use every bit of room we can get there anyway. It will make the exits of the corners a little tighter but I think the racing will still be good there because of it."

"It is definitely going to be unique," Jeff Gordon said. "I am anxious to get there and see how many right sides we take off the first hour of practice. I love the fact that we are able to get three wide there now. We are certainly racing side-by-side. It is just that there is a little bit more room to race on. You see more side-by-racing, I don't think that is a bad thing. But they want to see sparks fly and this might be the thing that does that."

Lest we become too cynical about the "have at it" mantra, Gordon was serious in praising the enhanced safety that the extra SAFER Barrier does bring to what was previously an unmoving concrete wall. "I like the safety aspect of it," he said. "It is definitely a good thing."

"Will there be more wrecks? Jeff Burton asked rhetorically. "Essentially that's what we're talking about here. I don't know. It's funny because most of the drivers really like the way the race track is now, but the fans want to see it back to kind of like it was. I don't know what impact it will have, to be perfectly honest."

But many drivers have become so comfortable with the more-roomy Bristol, especially drivers who love Bristol, that it may not have that much impact.

"The track has become so much easier to drive, you know, since they changed the racetrack," Kevin Harvick said. "You really didn't even use a lot of the exit of the corner. So it really shouldn't affect a whole lot from a driving standpoint."

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Now that NASCAR is back on a more traditional race start schedule, Sunday's Food City 500 is scheduled to start at 1 p.m., with the green flag falling at about 1:13 p.m.