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NASCAR honors man who designed
newly installed Loudon County guardrails
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE) — The man behind the newest generation of guardrails that offer better collision outcomes at higher rates of speed and have been installed in Tennessee will be honored by NASCAR for his work.
Dr. Dean Sicking will be
honored with the Landmark award during the NASCAR Hall of Fame
Class of 2025 for his work designing safer guardrails for their
tracks. In addition to his work for NASCAR, Sicking, 67,
designed most of the guardrails on Tennessee roads according to
Stephen Eimers, a guardrail expert and roadside safety activist
from Lenoir City.
Sicking’s recent work includes Next Generation Terminals (NGT) which have passed collision tests at higher speeds than any other guardrail in the United States, as far as its designers are aware. Some of these were recently installed on I-75 in Lenoir City. An engineer from the Tennessee Department of Transportation said that NGT was “a good safety improvement in the right direction.” A NASCAR spokesperson wrote that one of the barriers he invented “has saved countless lives over the past 20 years.”
His work also protects
drivers on the NASCAR tracks in Nashville and Bristol. He
also won the Bill France Award of Excellence in 2003 and the
National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 2005.
This year’s NASCAR Hall of Fame inductees include Carl Edwards, Ricky Rudd and Ralph Moody. |
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2/10/25