Motor Sports: What's the limit?

You hear NASCAR fans complain about restrictor-plate racing, the "big-one," and how the sanctioning body should just let the cars loose like they were in the late '80s.

Truth is, racing has changed since that April 30th qualifying session back in 1987, when Bill Elliot captivated a auto racing nation by posting a never before seen lap of 212.809 mph at Talladega Superspeedway.

Race teams have one goal in mind week after week, and that is to make their cars as fast as possible.

Unfortunately, for drivers, officials, and fans, you don't know how fast is too fast until it's too late.

In NASCAR's case, at the 1987 race at Talladega, the same weekend as Elliot's 212 mph lap, Bobby Allison cut a tire 21 laps into the event, which launched his car into the air and slammed it violently against the catchfence.

Several spectators were injured and hospitalized.

Following the conclusion of that race, eventually won by Bobby's son Davey Allison, NASCAR decided to invent the restrictor-plate, with the purpose of slowing the drivers down in fear that one day a car would wind up in the grandstands.

With three on-track deaths at the series' superspeedways since the emergence of the restrictor plate (Neil Bonnett, Rodney Orr, Dale Earnhardt), one can argue that slowing the cars down has done little in the aid of preventing serious injury.

Accidents are an unfortunate circumstance that comes with racing, but could you imagine some of today's wrecks at Daytona, such as Tony Stewart tumbling down the backstretch in 2001 or Ryan Newman this past season, flipping end over end near the stripe, at say 240 mph?

Although, most NASCAR fans fear the dreaded "R" word, restrictor-plates may be one of the greatest safety advances in racing's modern history.

Switching gears now, let's take a look at the Indy Racing League.

The IRL is now at the same crossroads as NASCAR was back in '87.

The 2003 season saw one of the most horrific incidents of all time as Kenny Brack's open cockpit car touched wheels with Tomas Scheckter at the season finale at Texas Motor Speedway, and ended up propelling into the fence, much like Allison had years ago.

As safety workers tended to what was only a cockpit remaining, race fans everywhere feared the worst.

Remarkably, Brack escaped with two broken ankles, a fractured right thigh, a fractured sternum and a fractured lower back.

Immediately after the race, the same old questions were raised - are the IRL cars going too fast?

The pole speed for the 2003 Indianapolis 500 was a remarkable 231.725 mph, but there had only been one fatality since the series' inception in 1996 (Scott Brayton).

It was believed that the cars were safe enough to run at 220+ mph week after week and the IRL sanctioning body looked little into slowing the cars down in the offseason.

Then, on October 22, 2003, the unthinkable happened.

While driving in a test session with Chip Ganassi Racing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, 26-year old Tony Renna got into the grass in turn 3, spun around in the air, and plunged through the fence at a much more severe angle than Brack had just one month earlier.

Renna's cockpit split in half and he was pronounced dead on the scene at 9:20 a.m.

In late November, former F1 driver Jacques Villeneuve, who is looking into different series after his BAR Racing Team opted not to renew his contract after 2003, was asked if he was considering a move to the IRL.

He responded, "I won't go to IRL... I have nothing against taking risks, but taking risks in the IRL means you die or you hurt yourself massively... how many a year get hurt?"

Villeneuve was right on may accounts.

According to ESPN.com, in 87 IRL races over eight seasons, 76 drivers have been injured in some way.

Responding to the death of Renna, the IRL has now decided to reduce the engine size from 3.5 liters to a smaller 3.0 liters.

Unlike restrictor-plates, the IRL engines will still be able to turn maximum rpms (10,300), but will lose nearly 100 horsepower in the process.

The series will also mandate sidepods, which will increase drag, slowing the cars down.

The goal is to decrease race speed by 10 to 20 mph in the hopes of giving drivers more time to react to problems on the track.

Now the question will be -- is 210 mph too much?

The IRL may have lowered top speeds, but you're still going to have open cockpit cars running 20 to 30 mph faster than the closed-cockpit stock cars of the NASCAR sanctioned series.

The disheartening problem is, if the IRL cars are still unsafe at 210 mph, we are going to have to find out the hard way.