Daytona Beach, Fla. ? Under relentless scrutiny for two straight years about safety precautions, NASCAR heads into the 2003 season with a new Research and Development Center, a handful of innovations and — most importantly — without a recent driver death.

When the season opens Sunday with the Daytona 500, drivers will be safer than ever before.

But Gary Nelson, who as NASCAR’s director of competition spearheads the safety effort, refuses to take satisfaction in the improved state of the 54-year-old stock-car series.

“When it comes to safety, we just cannot put our heels up and say ‘Look at how far we’ve come,”‘ Nelson said. “It’s something that always has to be on the front burner, we always have to be working hard to make more and more gains. It’s a never-ending process.”

It’s a different mind-set for NASCAR, which was long criticized for resisting safety improvements. What was standard in open-wheel racing was ignored in the stock car series.

After Dale Earnhardt’s fatal wreck in the Daytona 500 two years ago, the sanctioning body faced unprecedented attention. His death was the last for NASCAR’s three main series, and it followed three fatalities the year before.

Since then, NASCAR has made significant improvements at its own pace, which has sometimes seemed like a crawl.

Data recorders are in cars, head and neck restraints are mandatory, and medical liaisons are on NASCAR’s staff.

Outside experts are routinely consulted on various issues. In a recently begun practice, NASCAR meets with drivers twice a year to present its latest improvements and explain what the experts have learned.

Among the things being worked on:

l SAFER walls: The Steel and Foam Energy Reduction wall, also known as “soft” walls, absorb impact and have been installed in portions of the 2.5-mile tracks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway. Barrier experts at Nebraska University, led by Dr. Dean Sicking, are looking at possible implementation at other tracks.

l Composite seats: The carbon-fiber seats are designed to make cars’ cockpits safer. Not mandated, but Nelson said studies have proven the bendable seats are much safer than the stiff-as-board seats long believed to be most beneficial.

l Incident data recorders: Referred to as “black boxes,” they are required on all cars in NASCAR’s three national series. They are used to tabulate the G-force load drivers withstand upon impact and help reconstruct accidents.

The data recorded in 2002 was put into an “incident database” that provides an in-depth history of what drivers and cars experience during impact.

But there are still areas NASCAR needs to improve.

The series has no mandatory baseline testing for concussions, as in CART, the Indy Racing League and Formula One. Also, Rick Mast’s recent retirement because of carbon monoxide poisoning sent NASCAR scrambling to find a way to clean the air its drivers breathe.