A frightening crash by Jeff Gordon last spring has prompted Las Vegas Motor Speedway to install a new SAFER Barrier along the inside wall on the back straightaway of the 1.5-mile track.

During the race last March, four-time Cup champion Gordon made heavy contact with the wall in the area that is now protected by the SAFER (Steel and Foam Energy Reduction) barrier. The new SAFER barrier covers 1,700 feet of the inside backstretch wall, with the energy-absorbing units now covering 7,800 feet of the retaining walls around the track.

Gordon’s crash occurred when he made contact with Matt Kenseth’s car, sending both spinning. Gordon’s car hit the inside wall so hard it ripped the transmission from under the hood. Team owner Rick Hendrick said at the time that NASCAR should not return to the track until the retaining wall that Gordon hit was improved.

“Speedway Motorsports is committed to driver safety at all of its speedways,” said track general manager Chris Powell. “Following this year’s NASCAR Sprint Cup event, we consulted with NASCAR officials and our own engineers. We all agreed that installing the barrier on the backstretch was the proper course of action.”

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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP)—NASCAR placed Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards on probation Wednesday for the next six Sprint Cup Series races, the result of their on-track incident last weekend at the end of the race at Bristol Motor Speedway.

During the cooldown lap after Edwards’ Ford took the checkered flag for Roush Fenway Racing, Busch drove alongside Edwards and bumped his car. Edwards responded by driving the nose of his car into the right side of Busch’s Toyota, spinning him out.

The postrace incident was apparently a reaction to Edwards nudging Busch aside with 30 laps to go Saturday night. Busch had led the previous 415 laps.

Busch was unrepentant after the race, saying, “We’ll go on and we’ll race him that way in the Chase if that’s the way he wants to race.”

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If only most NASCAR drivers had Jimmie Johnson’s problems.

From the outside, the two-time defending NASCAR Sprint Series champion appears to be in the middle of another spectacular season. He heads to this week’s race in California fourth in season points, has wins at Indianapolis and Phoenix, and will clinch a spot in the playoffs if he manages to keep his No. 48 out of trouble on Sunday.

Yet to hear the perfectionist in Johnson talk, 2008 has been a frustrating mix of hit-and-miss efforts. While he remains in position to become the second driver in series history to win three straight points titles, Johnson admits his Hendrick Motorsports team is still trying to figure out the Car of Tomorrow.

“Some weekends I feel like we have a dominant car and other weekends I feel like we’re a fifth-place car or even a 10th-place car,” Johnson said. “With the strong team we have, we seem to be able to rally back and get finishes out of it. So I still think that we are maybe behind.”

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WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. (AP)—When rain washed out Sprint Cup qualifying at Watkins Glen International this month, a frustrated Boris Said had to park his No Fear Racing Ford for the second straight year at his favorite track.

“I used to get angry when this happened. Now I just get depressed,” he said. “I think last year I was a little more angry. Now, I’m just rolling with the punches.”

Considering the youth movement afoot in NASCAR, it’s remarkable that Said is even striving to compete full-time in Sprint Cup as his 46th birthday nears.

“I guess if 10 years ago somebody told me I’d be in NASCAR part-time or anything, I would have told them they were crazy,” he said. “I feel proud of the kind of unique career I’ve carved out in motorsports. I just love being part of the sport.”

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COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP)—Like most NASCAR fans, Darrell Waltrip thought Darlington Raceway’s goose was cooked.

The former champion and current TV broadcaster saw the expansive new tracks on the circuit with their spacious parking, gleaming seats and fan-friendly touches. Darlington, meanwhile, looked about the same as when Waltrip first raced it three decades earlier. So when NASCAR put the country track on its endangered list a few seasons back, Waltrip figured it wouldn’t be long before Darlington became extinct like iconic Southern racing layouts before it in Rockingham, N.C., and North Wilkesboro, N.C.

“There had not been a lot of growing” at Darlington, Waltrip said earlier this month. “That worried me.”

But five years later, the longtime home of the Southern 500 has become the track “Too Tough To Kill.”

This week, Waltrip takes part in what track leaders hope becomes another enduring tradition when Darlington hosts its first historic racing festival. Raceway president Chris Browning says the two-day event could draw as many as 20,000 people on a holiday weekend long connected to stock car racing at Darlington.

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DAYTONA BEACH, FLORIDA (TICKER) —Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch clearly do not like each other. But the NASCAR stars will have to be on their best behavior over the next six weeks.

NASCAR penalized both Edwards and Busch - the top two drivers in the Sprint Cup standings - on Wednesday, placing them on probation for the next six races.

The penalties were levied four days after the drivers exchanged post-race bumps following the Sharpie 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway, a race Edwards won by passing Busch with 31 laps remaining.

The race was not a typical Bristol demolition derby, but turned into one after Edwards and Busch crossed the finish line.

An agitated Busch hit the Ford of Edwards, who immediately retaliated, turning Busch’s Toyota. Busch attempted to get back at Edwards, but NASCAR officials waved him to pit road.

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BRISTOL, Tenn. (AP)—Most drivers near the top of the Sprint Cup points standings get more attention than Greg Biffle these days.

Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards are having magical seasons, and Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth are more in danger of missing NASCAR’s soon-to-start 10-race playoffs. Everything Dale Earnhardt Jr. does is news, Jimmie Johnson is trying to win his third championship in a row, Tony Stewart is hoping to win one as a parting gift to Joe Gibbs Racing, and Jeff Burton and Kevin Harvick are among the best drivers never to win one.

Biffle doesn’t mind at all, and is content to lurk in the shadows, at least for now.

“That’s the way it’s been, predominantly, a lot of the time,” the veteran for Roush Fenway Racing said. “I think they kind of skip over me. I like that because it’s less pressure for me. We just do the best we can, stay under the radar, I guess, and see what we can do.”

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP)—Joey Logano will drive in seven Sprint Cup races this fall as a tuneup before the 18-year-old star begins his full-time ride at Joe Gibbs Racing.

Logano, who will replace two-time Cup champion Tony Stewart in the No. 20 Toyota in 2009, will make his Sprint Cup debut Sept. 6 at Richmond International Raceway in the No. 02 Toyota prepared by Gibbs. JGR will also field a car for Logano at Atlanta in October.

Hall of Fame Racing announced Wednesday that Logano will then drive in the No. 96 Toyota in five more races: at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Sept. 14, at Kansas Speedway on Sept. 28, at Lowe’s Motor Speedway on Oct. 11, at Martinsville Speedway on Oct. 18 and at Texas Motor Speedway on Nov. 2.

Hall of Fame Racing gets its engines and chassis from Gibbs’ race team.

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