Our panel of experts weighs in on four of the biggest questions in NASCAR this week:

Turn 1: Brad Keselowski was criticized by Rick Hendrick and Joe Gibbs after Keselowski said Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing were poaching some of the top Ford employees. Were Keselowski's comments out of line? Or is it just Brad being Brad?

Terry Blount, ESPN.com: I love that Brad says what he thinks. It sure makes our jobs more fun. But this time he may have stepped over the line. Teams have been stealing each other's guys since NASCAR began. To call out Rick Hendrick and Joe Gibbs, two of the most respected men in the sport, was uncalled for. And it's a bit a stretch to paint Penske Racing as the Oakland A's of NASCAR. Please. Roger Penske is one of the wealthiest men in America. He has two big-money sponsors for his cars in Miller and Shell/Pennzoil. His racing facility in North Carolina is state-of-the-art. You pay what you have to pay to keep the best people. That's true in any sport.

Ed Hinton, ESPN.com: For openers, I'm weary of all these "Mr. Hendrick" and "Coach Gibbs" references with such reverence. They're still Rick and Joe to me. Now they're so sensitive about the squeaky cleanliness of their operations that they feel compelled to issue statements denying Keselowski's remarks, which would have been laughed off by a team owner like Junior Johnson -- whom nobody ever called "Mr. Johnson." This was just Brad being Brad, who is old school as a racer and knows that information gathering was a long-running phenomenon in the Lake Norman-Mooresville area. Owners used to worry that employees would give away secrets at lunch in diners or in beer joints after work. Hiring for information's sake certainly wasn't unheard of. Maybe all this has stopped, but I understand where Keselowski was coming from.

Ryan McGee, ESPN The Magazine: Brad being Brad. This whole situation throws a light on a fascinating and frustrating aspect of this sport. I hear people complaining all the time about drivers not showing enough personality and not speaking their minds, but when they do, those same people scream, "How dare he say that!" Even if his info is a little skewed, isn't the sport better when a guy like Brad is open and honest, even if that makes some people uncomfortable?

David Newton, ESPN.com: A little of both. One of the things the media -- and many fans -- love about Keselowski is his willingness to say what's on his mind. One of the things NASCAR and ownership don't love is that he doesn't always have the facts in order when he speaks. He's been called "misinformed" more than once, including by Hendrick and NASCAR chairman Brian France. I feel like we're in that area Tony Stewart warned about during the banquet last season when he said, "I don't think Brad has learned to be cautious yet. Hopefully that won't bite him like it has a lot of drivers in the past." Fortunately, team owner Roger Penske said he doesn't plan to put the brakes on Keselowski's mouth. We hope it always stay that way so Stewart can continue saying, "It's nice to see somebody that just speaks from the heart and isn't guarded when he speaks. That's the way all of us should be."

Marty Smith, ESPN Insider: Brad being Brad. I love his honesty. I love his willingness not to pander to the corporate machine. I love his go-to-hell attitude. It's refreshing in an arena oozing with canned answers. Look, some of what Keselowski says outright annoys his peers. He doesn't care. And he shouldn't. But what he should care about is accuracy. In this instance, he was obviously misinformed. Rick Hendrick laid into him hard, and then Joe Gibbs joined the chorus -- both in official team statements. These were prepared responses. They weren't asked about it on a whim by a reporter on pit road before a race. They sought out a response. These men aren't apt to comment in an official statement unless they're royally ticked. And they were.

Turn 2: Jason Leffler's death was a sad moment for everyone in auto racing. Should more be done to make lower-level short-track racing safer? Should NASCAR drivers reconsider running in some of these events in the future?

Blount: This tragedy comes under increased scrutiny with the upcoming Truck race on the dirt track at Eldora, which doesn't have the SAFER barrier. But there are no easy answers. Adding the barrier is not a realistic option, financially speaking, for most short tracks across the country. And some of the other safety improvements in NASCAR, especially involving how the cars are built, are not possible on open-wheel sprint cars. Most of you probably remember a few years ago when Dale Earnhardt Jr. climbed out of a sports-car inferno and was fortunate he didn't get seriously burned. Racers are people who accept physical risks, but in general, drivers should be more cautious about which lower-level events they race and weigh the dangers involved.

Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

Hinton: Of course more could and should be done, but first and foremost by the drivers themselves. Let's get off this SAFER barrier fixation, which likely was irrelevant in the Leffler tragedy. The first and best line of defense is occupant restraint. That is easily accomplished by the drivers, not the tracks. Dr. Dean Sicking, developer of the SAFER barrier, told the Charlotte Observer that "it is impossible to know" whether a soft wall would have saved Leffler and added that he is "somewhat skeptical" that it would have. Sprint cars are much lighter than stock cars, and the SAFER barrier wouldn't give as much on a short track at lower speeds as on a superspeedway at higher speeds. The impacts on Leffler's car likely would have been the same with a SAFER barrier as without.

Leffler apparently was wearing a head restraint, but those devices don't prevent lateral movement of the head in crashes. Halo components of seats, around the head, do. Education of short-trackers to the need for proper seats and head restraints is "our biggest problem," says Dr. John Melvin, widely recognized as the world's leading authority on the biomechanics of racing injury. To demand that short tracks all install SAFER barriers would put enormous expense on facilities that are generally in dire financial straits anyway -- and probably wouldn't fix the problem.

If I were a Cup team owner, I would stipulate in a driver's contract that he not participate in any events not sanctioned by organizations that require the latest technology in occupant restraint, e.g. NASCAR and IndyCar.

Without a thorough, scientific investigation by racing safety experts, we simply will never know what happened to Leffler or what might have been done to prevent his death.

McGee: Because we don't see drivers getting hurt at the major league levels like we used to -- though there's still work to do, especially with this insane partial SAFER barrier coverage stuff -- I think there's a tendency to think everything is all good. But the conditions at most short tracks are straight out of racing's stone age. I hit a handful of short-track races each year, and it seems like I see someone leave in an ambulance every time.

The conditions of the racetrack did not kill Jason Leffler. I know money is tight for short-track promoters and racers, but there are things that can be done, such as how a guy mounts his seat or belts or how a track marks off pit road. I'm hoping that an event like the NASCAR Trucks race at Eldora will prop up an example of what every short track can do. As for moonlighting, that's never going to stop. But I think we can understand why we've seen Cup owners frown on the practice.