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If you're kicking up gravel in a gravel trap, that's friction; it means energy is being dissipated, and you can see it. Unless I'm seeing massive white clouds of tire smok, I can't necessarily tell that any energy is really being dissiplated over paved run-off. And I'm convinced that gravel is better for stopping out-of-control vehicles not matter was the weather is. Also, if you're going to run bikes, the FIM makes gravel traps mandatory anyway.
Besides, the Camaro effectively lost its brakes, so I'm quite certain it would have gone over, perhaps at even greater speed, if the run-off at Elkhart Lake had been paved.
Unless there were people there between the two layers of barriers at the Nurburgring, I'm not sure what the huge problem is. the BMW would still have had to jump another wall, with catch fencing, to really leave the circuit.
Le Mans is a temporary circuit, which means there are only a select few times ANY driver can get experience at the place. Therefore, I'm not sure how you police that reasonably. I mean, EVERY driver that ever runs the 24-hour had to be a rookie at some point in time! It doesn't help that there is NO OTHER CIRCUIT of the same magnitude that a field of Le Mans cars currently runs at. In principle, it would help if they still ran the combined circuit at Monza, or the TT circuit at Dundrod, or something else of that scale.
Le Mans ought to look at placing the photographers at decent locations, but ones that are decidedly LESS likely to be major impact zones.
And personally, to finish this off, if they paved the run-offs at a track like Road America or Le Mans, a part of me would consider the tracks wholey "ruined", and no safety argument would ever be able to console that portion of my being, period! I'm already somewhat upset with certain modifications at Watkins Glen.
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