INDIANAPOLIS -- Tomas Scheckter's Indianapolis 500 ended with some bruised feelings and a badly damaged car.

Scheckter believed, though, that he walked away from Sunday's crash because of the ''soft'' walls, the safety device that made its first race appearance Sunday.

''It's great because I'm standing here,'' he said. ''It didn't feel all that hard. What hit me hard was that we lost this race.''

Scheckter led more than twice as many laps -- 85 -- as anyone else, finished 26th and hit the wall harder than any other driver.

But he was not injured, and that's just what Indianapolis Motor Speedway officials hoped for when they installed the Steel and Foam Energy Reduction (SAFER) barrier in late April.

The wall is attached to the concrete barriers by metal cables in each of the speedway's four turns. Between the concrete and the SAFER wall, which consists of four steel tubes welded together, are 16 inches of hard foam, which allows the wall to move and reduces the force of the impact.

After eight hits this month, including two Sunday, speedway officials were pleased.

''I think the wall performed exactly as we had hoped,'' said Kevin Forbes, the speedway's director of engineering and construction. ''It stayed together, it didn't slow down the event and we know that in all cases, the loading on the drivers was reduced.''

Scheckter's accident happened on Lap 173 when he entered the fourth turn too high. The car slid up the banking, didn't turn, and the right side of the car slammed violently into the ''soft'' wall. The car was mangled and the wall covered with black rubber. But Scheckter was not hurt.

He wasn't the only one getting help from the safety device, either.

In a crash involving Laurent Redon on Lap 199, the accident that forced the race to finish under a yellow flag, crew chief Rich Simon said onboard information indicated the impact on Redon was reduced 50 percent. Redon went to Methodist Hospital by amublance complaining of pain in his left knee.

''It looks like a big one, but I need more data,'' Simon said. ''I think he's banged his knees together. So he'll be wearing knee pads from now on.''

The wall also proved effective when six drivers hit it in practice. Five of those drivers -- Robbie McGehee, Mark Dismore, Paul Tracy, Max Papis and Billy Boat -- all returned to the track shortly after their accidents. All but McGehee started in Sunday's 33-car field.

Rookie P.J. Jones had the most serious injury, breaking a vertebrae in his neck May 7. He is expected to miss six weeks.

Forbes said that while the safety device is not perfect, it proved successful enough that he expects other tracks to follow Indianapolis' lead.

''Everyone was waiting to see what occurred,'' Forbes said. ''The unknown was how it would perform under race conditions. I think after today you're probably going to see some other tracks probably going to start using it very shortly.''