Smith: NASCAR Should Mandate Fence Standards

Here's an interesting article from ESPN.com:

CONCORD, N.C. -- The chairman of Speedway Motorsports says NASCAR should mandate a standard catch-fence system for all sanctioned tracks following the recent crash at Talladega Superspeedway.

"Let's fix it because the sport is at risk," Bruton Smith said on Monday at Lowe's Motor Speedway. "Cables [that provide strength to the fence] are just like fishing lines. You have a certain test lines. Cables can be like a quarter inch and have a 90,000 PSI [pounds per square inch].

"That's the things we need to do at all these speedways to make sure we have the strongest there is."

Smith's Speedway Motorsports Inc. owns about half the tracks on the NASCAR circuit.  NASCAR's sister company, International Speedway Corp., also owns about half of the tracks, including the Talladega Superspeedway.

I picked up on a bit of Smith's obligatory adversarial tone towards NASCAR in this article. Though, I agree with him on this one.  NASCAR should lead the way and at least offer guidance on fence heights and strengths -- then maybe phase in a mandate.