Drivers hail 'productive' meeting with IndyCar bosses

IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard invited drivers for a meeting following the death of Dan Wheldon on October 16.

Both parties exchanged ideas on issues such as safety and promotion during the three-hour meeting, which Franchitti labelled as productive.

"We all got to talk a lot, listen a lot and just look at going forward how do we improve things really in all areas," said Franchitti.

"I think it was a very positive and productive meeting and that is the first step today.

"There's still a lot of heavy hearts but everybody is very positive and everybody had ideas. We're all on the same page; we're all trying to improve things.

"It obviously was a massive shock what happened to Dan last week and we saw with the MotoGP as well that racing is a dangerous business. We're trying to make it as safe as possible; that's always been the goal."

2004 IndyCar champion Tony Kanaan said the series was moving in the right direction in trying to improve safety even further.

"We're heading in the right direction," the Kanaan. "(The meeting is) not something that is being done because something happened now. We set the standards. IndyCar created the soft walls so we're always going to set the standards. We're just trying to make it better.

"What people have to understand is that we're not going to make motor racing 100 percent safe. That's the fact. We're the lab and hopefully we can make it better, make it safer, but we'll never make it 100 per cent safe."