It's taken me a few days to get round to writing this, I apologise if I'm posting over anyone who has already posted something along these lines.

Everytime a tragedy strikes anywhere, no matter who it affects and what happened in the run up to it, questions are always asked - 'what could have been done stop it', and of course the death of a race driver - a participant in the most technologically driven type of sport in the world - may attract more of these questions from more people.

As tragic as any fatal accident is you can often be assured that something positive will emerge from it. New safety measures, new rules. Ayrton Senna's 1994 crash at Imola led to a number of chicanes being added to many tracks to slow down the cars before potential danger points, Greg Moore's horrific crash at Fontana, led to the infields of most tracks being paved to prevent cars being flipped as they climb from grass to paved infield roads. So what might come from Saturday's events.

The possible cause of initial explosion, just before the finish line, is beyond me. I know next to nothing about the internal workings of NHRA engines, so I'm not going to venture towards trying to cure any problems there.

No, the major problem is the massive lack of proper run off at the end of the track. Sure they have the extra paved length after the quarter mile. That works fine for working cars with deployed chutes. But surely it is obvious that, unfortunately not every run ends with two working with deployed chutes gracefully coasting to a halt.

When I saw the accident I was reminded of so many from the past. When I was younger I had several of the VHS video collections of racing accidents, mostly from America. Even at the age of about 7 I was very aware that drag racing was very dangerous, but several of the older accidents I remember showed that levels of safety at the tracks were far below those needed by the speeds of the cars that raced there. The fact that the outside walls were terrifyingly low, the fact that some tracks have areas of trees or large banks of sand just off the track. And the fact that the last line of defence in stopping cars was sand traps, safety nets, and walls.

All three are workable ways of stopping out of control race cars, all three have been used in other motorsport. But. Sand traps are fast disappearing from road course style tracks, in favour of high grip asphalt run-offs, the sort that are often seen at the newer tracks in F1, because sand has a habit of flipping cars if they dig in to far, and at too high a speed. Catch fencing was found at many tracks around the world during the 1970's and 1980's, but that exactly the point. They are outdated. Walls still surround a vast number of tracks. However, some have tyres in front of them, others have been clad in SAFER barrier.

All these systems have been phased out of circuit racing for good reasons, yet the NHRA continues to use them.

There is no simple solution to stop a dragster, to wait for them to stop of their own momentum could take more space than is realistic, I can't think of a truly workable solution. But there has to be something safer than sand traps, catch fencing and walls.