ATLANTA --- Jeff Gordon's impact with the inside wall at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was catastrophic.

The car was crushed and broken. Roll cage bars were snapped like pretzels; parts of the engine tumbled down the straightaway like a beach ball lost in the wind.

Gordon, however, walked away without a scratch.

So much attention has been spent on how the new Car of Tomorrow performs on the track in the Sprint Cup Series, it's easy to forget that safety was the driving force in the car's development.

Brett Bodine, the director of cost research who developed the new winged car, was thrilled to hear Gordon bemoan the lack of SAFER barriers at Las Vegas. He was equally happy to hear concerns about grass runoff areas and other safety issues instead of vigils for Gordon's quick recovery.

"That fact can't be overlooked," Bodine said.

Although NASCAR insists the new car, which is wider and taller than a standard stock car to allow for energy-absorbing zones, was on the drawing board for years, most believed Dale Earnhardt's death on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500 forced the sport to concentrate on safety.

Since that accident, NASCAR has mandated more than 50 changes to the rulebook on safety issues. Teams have done their part, too.

Hendrick Motorsports was a pioneer with the carbon fiber seat that essentially wrapped Gordon in protective padding. Add that with a bigger cockpit, crushable materials throughout the car and mandatory head restraint systems, and it turned Gordon's crash into nothing more than amazing video.

"People have a tendency to forget this is a dangerous sport," said NASCAR vice president Jim Hunter. "We try to make it as safe as possible, working with the teams and the manufacturers.

"Jeff's path was like a perfect storm. I don't think anyone thought, prior to his accident that a car could get in where Jeff got. However, we learn as we go. I'm sure we'll fix that and if other tracks have openings similar to that, they'll fix those as well."

Another of the safety initiatives spawned by Earnhardt's crash was the use of data recording devices in each car. NASCAR now can measure G-forces, angle of impact and other mechanical data to help understand what happens inside a car during a crash. NASCAR doesn't release information from crashes, but Gordon said the sanctioning body said his impact with the leading edge of a concrete wall was greater than 50 Gs. Earnhardt's impact was measured at 44.5, according to University of Nebraska scientists who investigated the death.

But unlike Earnhardt's impact, Gordon said his car easily absorbed the blow.

"It's not necessarily G-force, it's load and how it's spread over time and stuff," Gordon said. "I think it was a 50, but it was the matter of how long it was spread out over time and they liked the way it spread out. It was pretty big. It was the hardest frontal impact I've ever experienced.

There's a lot of different things that your body goes through, that the car goes through in that angle of an impact."

Bodine and Hunter are proud of NASCAR's relatively new proactive approach to safety. Earnhardt was the last driver in NASCAR's top series to die on the track, a run of more than seven years.

That still doesn't excuse an unprotected opening like the one at Las Vegas, Jeff Burton said.

"I will give, and the race tracks deserve, a tremendous amount of credit to the investment they put into development of and installation of the safer barriers," he said. "They have worked extremely hard at making things safer for the fans, for the drivers, for pit crew members."