New seat specs draw interest in wake of Rudd injury

Seats and helmets were hot topics at NASCAR's annual safety meeting for drivers and crew chiefs Tuesday at Daytona International Speedway. Attendance is mandatory for the gatherings, which continue this month with a second Sprint Cup test and sessions for the Nationwide and Craftsman Truck series.

Tom Gideon, safety director for GM Racing, said drivers were particularly interested in new seat specifications in the wake of Ricky Rudd's Sept. 2 crash at California Speedway. Rudd, who made a NASCAR-record 788 consecutive starts, suffered a severely separated left shoulder and missed five races, the first time he had been sidelined by an injury.

"They have rigid seats now with shoulder and head support, and they want to make sure there's nothing in the seat to hurt the shoulder," Gideon said. "There can be edges of the seat that can get into the shoulder, and that might have happened in Ricky's case." USATODAY.com