Tom
i also had talked with steve hampton who designed and installed the cages in both cars and got the same reply.
while i did not get to inspect the car as they impounded it in the road atlanta garages under lock and key, from what i could see from a distance and the pic's, it looked pretty much a replay of bryans crash.
even though sam at the time was unable to walk away,it looks as if he going to be OK ! and being in his mid. 60's thats saying something, as bryan is much younger.

on the bmw, i don't know what the bumper set up is, but it looked like it did it's job, i'm sure tony was going a million miles an hour or so it seemed at that moment.

i don't know if you know jim burke, he runs a gt-lite nissian here in the southeast and he has done something close on the drivers side of his car also.
instead of taking the nascar style door bars all the way to the outer door skin on the drivers side, he stopped about 3 inches short of the skin and installed a highdensity foam barrier the entire width of the door area, it looks to be contained in a fuel cell type bladder material.

tom, thanks for bringing this up,looking forward to the replys as its giving me food for thought on the new it/7/a i'm building.
bring on your thoughts guys
joe