Many people would suggest that speed is the most important aspect one needs to focus on when building a racing car. However, if history has taught us anything, it is that safety comes before everything else. NASCAR has come a long way since the 1900s and the early 2000s in terms of safety and former Cup Series driver Jeff Burton was the driver who innovated a whole new setup to protect drivers’ heads in the car.

Head injuries used to be very common back in the day. A lot of the retired NASCAR drivers today have stories about how their heads were compromised getting into accidents while racing. Such injuries have taken several legends away from the world, perhaps the most notable one being Dale Earnhardt who passed away due to a basilar skull fracture.

Jeff Burton reveals his first head-protection invention

In a recent episode of Kenny Conversation with Kenny Wallace, Jeff Burton explained how it was IndyCar that inspired him to come up with a device that protected a driver’s head. In open-top racing like IndyCar and Formula One, the head and neck of a driver are always secured, which is something NASCAR did not have for the longest time.

“I don’t remember the timing of it but Ford had a safety seminar and had this conversation about how IndyCar seats are different than the NASCAR-type seats and I started looking at pictures about…their heads were like contained at that time. Why can’t we do that?” the former Cup Series driver said.

One of the very first head-protection gears that Burton had come up with was a net that was present on both sides of the driver’s head to contain it. However, there is only so much force a net could handle. It did not take long before the 56-year-old was on the lookout for something a lot more rigid and reliable. The net, however, was named after him, as it came to be known as the Burton net.

“We built this left-side net and we went to Simpson and said, we made them the pattern and said can you build us this and they liked it, put it in their catalog, and called it the Burton net. Then we put it on the right side to try and contain your head. Then, we’re like wait, why can’t we do this with something more rigid?” Burton added.

Back in those days, Burton revealed that head protection was not something that was a priority for NASCAR. Rather, ribs and shoulders were the priority, as those were what drivers injured and complained of more often.

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Former Cup Series racer reveals NASCAR’s priorities back in the day

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Jeff Burton revealed that he went to Brian Butler to get his head containment contraption. The first time something like that was ever seen in a race car was at Daytona, in Jeff Burton’s car. At the time, it had intrigued several drivers, including Kenny Wallace himself.

“We built this head containment and it had a hole in the side of it where you could look through. The sport had started building containment to catch rather than catching your ribs, catching your shoulders because we were all breaking our ribs. But we did nothing to contain the head and so in the first time the head was contained, fully contained was Daytona in my car in a piece that Brian Butler and I had built together,” Burton added.

The racing community is thankful to the 56-year-old driver for being a pioneer in driver’s safety. Head injuries have turned out to be fatal or career-ending several times in the past. Thanks to innovators like Jeff Burton, those instances have been greatly reduced.

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