Dale Earnhardt's death was, without question, the greatest tragedy NASCAR has ever experienced. To see the life of one of its greatest drivers snuffed out so quickly and violently left horrific scars that will take years to erase from our memories.

But from all the pain and sadness that resulted from Earnhardt's death, at least one good thing resulted. After skirting the edge of safety, and admittedly even lapsing at times, NASCAR officials realized the responsibility they had to work harder than ever to not just improve safety by leaps and bounds, but to make sure a tragedy like that never occurred again.

To that end, the sanctioning body has taken a number of steps. There have been numerous rule changes, with one of the most significant being the mandating of head and neck restraint devices in all cars. There also has been the mandate that all crew members who go over the pit wall to service a car during a race must wear helmets and other safety gear.

NASCAR has also begun utilizing so-called "soft walls" at a few of the tracks on the Winston Cup tour. Soft walls are energy-absorbing devices that act to lessen the impact and resulting extremely rapid G-forces of deceleration upon impact, thus reducing the violent strain placed upon a driver's head and body.

But head and neck restraining devices and soft walls are just the tip of the iceberg. Since Earnhardt's death, NASCAR has committed millions of dollars towards research and testing to further enhance all aspects of making the sport as safe as possible.

"The last thing we ever want to see again is a crash like Dale's, where someone loses their life," NASCAR President Mike Helton said earlier this year. "To us, one death is one too many. That's why we're striving to make this sport as safe as we can, and why we've committed so much money and resources to that end."

While NASCAR has continued to refine its safety standards through more mandates and required equipment, the future of the sport is actually being built in two different locations: Lincoln, Neb., and Conover, N.C.

It is at Lincoln, home of the University of Nebraska and its highly respected Midwest Roadside Safety Facility affiliate, where structural examinations and numerous crash tests are laying the groundwork for even stronger and more crash-resilient cars in the future.

And, about 1,300 miles away in North Carolina sits NASCAR's new research and development center. In operation for just about a year, it is not only complementing the efforts and research coming out of the MRSF, but also formulating and collecting its own data to make further improvements on and off the track.

Leading all of NASCAR's safety-related efforts is Gary Nelson, the sanctioning body's director of competition and safety. It's his job to not only eliminate tragedy, but to make cars as safe as they can be.

And 2002 has been a hallmark year for NASCAR when it comes to safety, with the promise of even greater achievements in the future.

"I don't know if I can take just one topic and say we made a big step, because I think we grabbed all of the issues and moved them all forward," Nelson said. "And when you work in safety, it's not the same like if you're a politician and the voters tell you if you did a good job or not. And, if you're in business, you get your paycheck, or if you own a business, it's your bottom-line. And if you're a racer, it's your finishing place in a race and the points you get.

"But in safety, there's nothing quite that clear. You can't say 'we accomplished this or that during the course of a year and here's the results.' All we can say is we know that we've raised the bar on all categories, but we're not going to put our feet up on the desk, sit back and take time off. I think we're going to just keep pushing on that bar and keep raising it."

Perhaps one of the most significant steps was to require the installation of in-car data recorders in every Winston Cup, Busch and Truck Series vehicle. In essence, the technology is similar to the "black box" recorders in airplanes, where a variety of actions and measurements are recorded not only during the race, but upon impact.

It is the resulting data that Nelson and the rest of NASCAR's safety team hopes will lead not only to safer cars, but also ways to minimize impact and injury.

For the most part, this past season was about collecting data from the variety of crashes that occurred in NASCAR's three top divisions. That data will be further cataloged and analyzed to see what elements can be translated into safety improvements in the future.

"We recorded more than 450 incidents in the three series this past season," Nelson said. "We're generating a lot more data than we thought we ever would, and a lot more data than other series that have been using data recorders (like in CART and IRL). So, the data that we are generating will move all of racing forward because we can see trends. The more data you have, the more easier it is to draw a trend line.

"Other series that race are interested in our data, as well, and they also want us to talk about our database and how in one year we got so much data in it that people who have been doing data recorders for many years haven't even come close to what we've collected in just one season. So, 43 Winston Cup cars or trucks or Busch Series cars running virtually every weekend of the season, we are certainly going to produce some numbers."

The fact that so much data was generated surprised Nelson and his assistants, but what has been collected so far is, in Nelson's estimation, just scratching the surface about the data's potential.

"We got a real eye-opener, probably the first one, and was something we started seeing last year," Nelson said. "But, it's going to take a lot more data to verify, but the first thing we found from our data was that the majority of hits are not through the front bumper of the car, they're more through the right front tire of the car. Yeah, there are hits in the front of cars, and they happen all the time, but they're generally not producing big G-force numbers.

"A year ago or year and a half ago, when everyone was talking about design of cars and different things, we asked some pretty knowledgeable people where should we concentrate our efforts. There's only so many hours in the day and so many people and so many options on what to work on and look at. Contrary to what the perception was in the industry and in the public, the No. 1 place to work was the driver's restraint systems and seats and how the drivers buckled in. The No. 2 place to work on were barriers or walls, and try to soften the impact by working on them. And the third place was to work on the car. So, we approached our safety initiatives with that priority list in hand. Now that we have data from the data recorders, it's telling us not to work so much on the front bumper of the car, but work instead on the corner."

One of the biggest assets to Nelson and the research that the R&D center has gathered is Dr. John Melvin from the MRSF. Nelson acknowledges the role Melvin and his theories and tests have played in helping NASCAR forge a path of study and implementation.

"I'm real happy that we listened to John Melvin and the experts in the industry who suggested that we not spend all our time and resources just on the car," Nelson said. "If there is a way of saying 'What did you guys do in 2002?', I'd have to say we feel very comfortable that the people who advised us and consulted with us told us the right things."

One of those things Melvin and other advisors Nelson has consulted with is continual development of the soft-wall concept. While we saw the successful implementation of soft walls at several tracks last season, particularly at Indianapolis and Talladega, Ala., many at NASCAR had hoped to be able to mandate soft walls at all tracks on the Winston Cup circuit by 2003.

That idea may have been premature, as the sanctioning body is still far from requiring soft walls at all tracks -- but we will definitely see a few more tracks install the walls this season, with potential full compliance by 2004 or 2005.

	“	I'm real happy that we listened to John Melvin and the experts in the industry who suggested that we not spend all our time and resources just on the car. ”
		— Gary Nelson

"We've got one more test that we're trying to finish up, and we're about ready to do this, to get verification and more data on the tighter radius of turns (at tracks that install soft walls)," Nelson said. "That brings in a different group of tracks, and then the last thing is the higher banking. So, even though I wish, like everything, that we could have all these answers, that's why we do testing, because you don't know for sure.

"We just ran one test three weeks ago in Nebraska, and we still have the one more test to go, so we should have some answers after that. It's hard to answer mandated, and if mandated, what tracks you're going to mandate it at without test results."

While Nelson and others directly involved in improving safety in NASCAR will continue to refine some of the existing elements already in place, like head and neck restraining devices and soft walls, more attention will be paid to the third part of the safety triumvirate initiative that has served as the basic groundwork for all safety issues.

"With that knowledge on the right front corner of the car to focus in on, I think there'll be some work done there that will start to materialize," Nelson said. "It begins with a recommendation and ends up as a rule. We've got some things we're exploring there.

"We've also got some real exciting things in computer modeling that's just at the tip of really taking off. It's the kind of thing that the best computers that we can get, you put in a calculation, you go home and by the next morning, you hope it's done. There's just so many calculations that have to be done sometimes to come up with answers. It's exciting that that's even possible with a simulation program. There are also some other simulation programs that hold a lot of promise but are a little bit further down the road.

"But, I guess if you'd be looking for a theme or focus point for 2003, it's going to be simulations."

The last thing Nelson and his staff will be focusing in on in 2003 will be so-called "common templates" of Winston Cup cars. Many had thought that NASCAR would have already mandated one common template for 2003 from which Dodge, Chevrolet, Ford and Pontiac would have had to adapt their body styles to.

However, that will not come to pass any time soon, although there have been some modifications to bring all four models into more uniformity when it comes to angles, drag, aerodynamic differences and crash worthiness.

"We've certainly tightened the parameters between Dodge, Ford, Chevy and Pontiac," Nelson said. "From 2002 going into 2003, there were two new cars presented, the Pontiac Grand Prix and Chevrolet Monte Carlo. We tried to calculate the aerodynamic effects of all of those dimensions and we found what we thought were the most critical to performance.

"We've tightened the box up on all those dimensions. But at the same time, we left the cosmetic or the brand identity dimensions open. So, they're not common cars by any means, they are each unique and follow their brand lines. But the things that don't make a difference to appearance, like the angle of the windshield, if one is 3 degrees different than the other, you don't see it."

Jerry Bonkowski covers NASCAR for ESPN.com.