DETROIT, Mich. --When racecar drivers hurtle down the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the Indianapolis 500 this Memorial Day, the concrete walls on the outside turns will be padded with 'soft walls' designed to absorb the impact of possible collisions involving the 200-plus mph racecars.

The polystyrene and steel tube system was tested using Indy and NASCAR racecars with WSU BioMedical Engineering Department 'smart' crash dummies in place of real drivers.

The new soft wall system dubbed SAFER (Steel and Foam Energy Absorbing Reduction) is the result of a project developed by the Indy Racing League with the University of Nebraska, NASCAR, and Wayne State University. If successful, the technology is expected to be applied at other racetracks and to become the most significant safety devices in racing.

Testing took place in Lincoln, Nebraska at the University of Nebraska's outdoor crash track adjacent to Lincoln Airport. Data from the test dummy and crash car shows that the soft wall system will give both Indy and NASCAR drivers a better chance of surviving and reducing injury from an impact at high speeds against the outside wall, says Wayne State researcher Paul Begeman.

Throughout the month of May the new barrier will get a chance to be tested with live drivers during trial runs leading up to the race on May 26. "The (test) results have been very positive, but the next step is to see what happens on the race track," Gary Nelson, managing director of NASCAR competition, told the Associated Press.

The test cars at the Roadside Safety Facility in Lincoln were launched down the test track on a pulley and guide wire system, hitting the text wall at angles of 20 to 25.5 degrees. By the time the test cars hit the barrier, they were traveling 150 mph, says Craig Foster, coordinator of the WSU crash lab and the technician on site in Lincoln. "As far as I know, the dummy we use is now the world's fastest riding dummy."

A total of 4,240 feet of the outside wall surrounding Indianapolis Motor Speedway's 2 1/2 mile oval track will be covered with the energy-absorbing barrier. Each turn of the speedway will have 1,600 feet of barrier and another 60 feet of transition element approaching the actual 'soft wall'.

The new barrier is constructed of 20-foot modules of rectangular modular tubes welded to form a unified element and bolted to the cement wall. Sandwiched between the concrete and steel are 16 inches of hard pink foam spaced 10 feet apart. The purpose of the wall is it provides a continuous barrier system that moves back as it dissipates energy. It was designed to keep the racecar parallel to the track and prevent it from pocketing, a situation in which the wall wraps around the front of the car and causing severe deceleration.

The new barrier is an evolution of the original Plastic Energy Dissipation System (PEDS) that was applied to Indianapolis Speedway's Turn 4 in 1998. Interest in driver safety has stepped up during an upswing in recent years of driver fatalities, highlighted last year in the racing death of popular NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt at the Daytona 500.

"As a driver, we probably won't even know they're (the soft barriers) there," Indy driver Jeff Ward told the Associated Press. "But there's probably a certain comfort level knowing that they're out there."