Just watching some NHRA on Fox and the current round at Denver and following rounds are only being run to 1000ft for nitro cars. This is of course is following the unfortunate death of Scott Kalitta a few weeks ago.
His engine blew at the finish line and following an unfortunate chain of events failed to pull up resulting in his death.
As a result NHRA have imposed this interim measure as they believe the engines let go more often than not after 1000ft. Once the exact cause of the accident has been established new rules may come into play in an effort to make the sport safer.
I know this doesn’t affect VWs as such but it’s an interesting topic nevertheless.

Ultimately these cars are now going so fast current runoff areas and other issues have the potential to result in injury or death in an accident.

Fair statement or is the nature of the beast.

I think that it's only fair to say that with the times these things are running at, extra runoff would be of major benefit to allow for human or mechanical failure etc. At the end of the day, no one wants to put their lives at risk unnecessarily if it can be avoided. Safety has come a long way from the days of people dying on racetracks on a regular basis.

i saw the crash on U tube

as per above the run off is not enough it didnt look like it even had a sand trap or safety net

the track had a safety net - except he was airborn by the time he got there and hit the pole holding the net in place this ripped the bottom out the car along with him still strapped to his seat
adam