"Whatever we can do speed-wise and aerodynamically to keep the cars on the ground, keep the lift out of the back of the cars, is what we need to focus on," Newman said Friday at Texas Motor Speedway during his weekly meeting with reporters. "There has been testing done, but obviously more testing needs to be done in order to make it safer for everybody."

Newman, who initially said he wouldn't talk to NASCAR because "it just doesn't matter," called the sanctioning body Sunday night and talked Wednesday with vice president of competition Robin Pemberton and Sprint Cup director John Darby in a "very constructive meeting."

Newman suggested testing the effect of cars going backward at 200 mph at Windshear, a state-of-the-art rolling-road wind tunnel in Concord, N.C., that was built by Gene Haas, co-owner of Newman's team, Stewart-Haas Racing.

Besides lobbying for changes to avoid liftoff, Newman also made recommendations for improving driver extrication. Newman was trapped inside his No. 39 Chevrolet for about 10 minutes at Talladega while safety workers flipped his car and cut away the roof.

It wasn't the first time Newman was trapped inside the cockpit after a crash. During a practice session at Watkins Glen International in August 2003, his car tipped on the driver side after a spin, and Newman grew frustrated while waiting several minutes for workers to devise a plan for righting his car.

"It was definitely better," Newman said of Talladega. "Those guys did a good job. I'm not mad at any of them. I just want it to be known that I think from my standpoint a better job can be done. If we sit there and say they did a perfect job, then we need to find a new situation because that's not the way it works.

"Just as in racing, as in safety, we can always be better, we can always make improvements."

Newman chipped a few teeth and was still sore Friday but said the Talladega wreck appeared worse than it was. After spinning backward, his Chevy's rear wheels lifted up, causing a somersault onto the Kevin Harvick's hood. The car then slid on its roof into the Turn 3 wall before rolling into the infield.

"My spine was compressed, but I never was compressed to the point that it pushed my butt down into the seat," Newman said of the collision with Harvick. "There was an instantaneous load there that hurt."

Though he wasn't wedged inside the car (he removed his helmet after the car was upright), Newman said he was "disappointed the (roll) cage crushed the way it did. We've got to be able to learn from that. Whatever we might be able to do from a welding standpoint, from a thickness standpoint with the tubing to make it stronger so that doesn't happen again is equally as important."

Newman, a longtime outspoken advocate for safety, also was critical of NASCAR after the April race at Talladega, where Carl Edwards' Ford flipped onto Newman's hood on the final lap.

"Six months is plenty of time to make those changes," he said.

He also remained steadfast that NASCAR outlawing bump drafting in the turns caused boring racing at Talladega. After being warned about contact, drivers raced single file for much of 500 miles.

"The more restriction that you give the drivers, the less the fans are going to be delivered excitement," Newman said. "That's not good."

He didn't find much support, though, from teammate Tony Stewart, who said Talladega "wasn't boring" even though he radioed his team he needed help staying awake during the event.

"The hard part is we've got (the media) saying it's boring," Stewart said. "The races are exciting, it's just like everybody wants the perfect race every time. You can't do that."

Mark Martin, whose No. 5 Chevy also got airborne briefly near the finish at Talladega, said NASCAR needed to work on keeping cars grounded but added "we did keep the cars out of the grandstands, and I don't believe that was a boring race. I didn't like it, but certainly I think it's been blown completely out of proportion that cars got single file for a while. When I finished 15 years ago, it was me, (Dale) Earnhardt and Ernie (Irvan) in the lead draft. No one complained that was boring, that was just Talladega. I'm a little confused about everything I've read and listened to this week."

Martin believes his car flipped with help from the nose of Martin Truex Jr.'s spinning Chevy. Martin said he had a similar wreck to Newman's in the early '90s at Talladega.

"Newman's crash was not atypical of the past 15 years," Martin said. "From reading everything, I feel what happened there was in some ways sensationalized and blown way out of proportion. It was a horrible thing, but that was not different from what we've seen in a solid 15 years or more. It's really hard to stop the cars from doing that when they get around like that."

Enlarge By Ralph Lauer, AP A crewman helps Ryan Newman get buckled in for morning practice sessions at Texas Motor Speedway.