Are NASCAR Tracks Doing Enough to Protect Drivers as New Hampshire Approaches?

Even as NASCAR's popularity was in the process of soaring to heights never before seen and likely never to be seen again, the turn of the century was not kind to the sport. In 2000, during separate incidents in practice sessions at New Hampshire Motor Speedway (then named New Hampshire International Speedway), drivers Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin died in accidents at almost precisely the same spot on the track, Petty in May and Irwin in July. Later that year, in October, Truck Series driver Tony Roper died in an accident during an actual race at Texas Motor Speedway. All of this preceded Dale Earnhardt's shocking death in an accident on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500 the following February. Since then, and primarily because of those fou...

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