One of the greatest dangers in Nascar racing is the everpresent danger of a collision with the concrete wall which surrounds almost every track.  Such a collision causes extensive damage to a racer's car and often to the racer.  Some collisions can even lead to fatalities, such as in the February 18, 2001 crash of Dale Earnhardt at Daytona.  Nascar officials and researchers are currently investigating new materials to find a safer barrier for race tracks.
    The experiment described on this page was performed by two high school students with a similar goal.  In this experiment wood, brick, a foam pad, bubble wrap, a sand bag, cotton pads, an air bag, playdough, sponges were all tested to see how they would perform as a barrier for race cars.  For each trial a replica of a race car was launched from the same height on a ramp and run into the different barriers.  The force of the collision was tested with a force probe mounted to the front of the car and then the wreck was graphed using a Ti-83 Plus calculator and a Labpro.  The following materials are listed in decreasing order of the protection they were found to provide:  double stacked playdough, the air bag, the foam pad, sponges, one layer of playdough, cotton pads, a sand bag, bubble wrap, wood, and brick.  Concrete, modeled via the brick test, is the substance currently being used on Nascar tracks.  In conclusion, it was decided that foam padding would serve as the best protective barrier because it provides much more protection than most other substances and it would not require much repair after each collision.

The preceeding researched was done by Emily Bone and David Walker.

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