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TimB, there is discussion going on about soft walls but NASCAR doesn't seem to be as proactive as Charlotte track owner Humpy Wheeler, because Humpy already has installed soft walls on some of his inside retaining walls at that track.
I don't know the reasoning why more track owners haven't followed suit, perhaps it is related to money, but there appears to be issues regarding how beneficial a certain type of soft wall can be for both open wheel and stock cars. This is now more important since both type of cars often run at the same tracks today. This is definately an issue because some types of soft walls are believed to make impacts more dangerous for open wheel cars because the pointy noses of their cars have dug into some types of soft walls, causing the rear of the car to be violently whipped around.
The incident you have described above seems to be the Jimmie Johnson BGN crash at Watkins Glen last year. The armco barriers there were not fitted with soft walls, but styrofoam blocks. Styrofoam blocks are great on road courses and seem to do the trick rather inexpensively, but they create clean-up problems on oval tracks. Fans want increased driver safety but they also don't want to sit for six hours to get a race completed.
I would say that soft walls seems to be an area that should be explored more because it can potentially benefit both stock car and open wheel racing together, if one uniform one can be developed for both types of racing.
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