Drivers support Gordon's safety call

Gordon was critical of the safety standards at the mile and a half oval last weekend after his car hit hard against an inside angled concrete wall, which the four-times Cup champion believes should be reconfigured and changed with the addition of a SAFER barrier.

A number of drivers have echoed Gordon's demands, saying safety upgrades must be made at many tracks, which go beyond the use of SAFER barriers on the inside walls and the reconfiguration of the openings such as the one at Las Vegas.

"It's frustrating to know there is still a lot left to [do]," said reigning Sprint Cup series champion Jimmie Johnson. "We need to look closer to soft walls on the insides, the breaks in the walls and then also the grass."

"There's no reason to have grass on the inside of a race track. It should be asphalt from wall to wall. If we look at every car that flips at a superspeedway race, it's because it gets in the grass. So those are hopefully areas we can look at and work on."

Jeff Burton also said that what happened to Gordon at Las Vegas was inexcusable, and called for action to be taken immediately.

"Without mincing words, last week's incident and how Jeff hit the wall is, in a word, inexcusable," Burton said. "When we don't let history teach us, then we're being hard-headed and that's what happened last week."

"The implementation of soft walls on the interior wall is something we have to move toward and the continued study of the shape and design and the impact angle of the wall is something we have to move forward with. This is something that is inexcusable to me."

Veteran Mark Martin reminded of a previous incident similar to Gordon's, which took place in 2006 at Kentucky when Jeff Fuller had a massive crash with an inside wall during a Nationwide series race. He said there should be no hesitation in making changes to the wall's openings.

"I really think, the soft walls would be nice, they would be nice," Martin added. "But I don't think there should be any discussion about the breaks in the interior walls.

"It just looks like a no-brainer to me, and it should have been done a while back when Jeff Fuller, or whoever it was, hit that one wall there at Kentucky, or wherever it was, the opening."

Meanwhile Dale Earnhardt Jr said he is confident that the tracks will start work on fixing the openings on the walls, and expects the implementation of soft walls to follow.

"Well, it would be nice if they would fix the openings, those are kind of dangerous," he said. "We've seen cars hit them over the last couple of years and I think that they will.

"I think they'll fix them. Once they fix them, they will probably put soft walls up more as they start to make a little bit more money where they can afford it."

Gordon's call for safety improvements has already seen results. Las Vegas Motor Speedway officials stated this week that they have already begun work at the spot of Sunday's accident. Other tracks are expected to review their safety standards as well.