Soft Walls: NASCAR continues its involvement in testing of soft-wall technology and NASCAR President Mike Helton says he’s been surprised at some of the results, although he wasn’t specific. “We’ve learned a lot,” Helton said. “We’ve been surprised by a lot, quite frankly. That’s part of research and development. We’ve been surprised at how some things don’t work the way you would think, which makes it a bigger challenge. We keep changing materials, changing density of material to find that right combination that, No. 1, works … and No. 2, doesn’t create a worse-case scenario than the first problem to start with. That’s a very fine line.” Helton wouldn’t put a timetable on when or if soft walls might be seen in NASCAR.(RacingExtra)(7-14-2001)
