Ehhhhh Dale Jr's initial concussion happened at a tire test at Kansas, the Talladega accident only made things worse.
If you look at history, pack racing just isn't that dangerous. A spike in injuries doesn't bear out that it is that dangerous, freak spikes often occur in anything. When I think about dangerous racing conditions, I think about Denny's injury last year, Dale Jr's concussion at California in 2002, Sterling Marlin's neck injury at Kansas later that year, Steve Park's freak accident at Darlington in 2001, Blaise Alexander and Eric Martin's deaths at Charlotte in ARCA in 2001 and 2003 respectively and Elliott Sadler's horrific crash at Pocono a couple of years back that could've been MUCH worse if not for safety improvements at the track.
Racing is dangerous. NASCAR needs to install SAFER everywhere to make it less so. For the amount of major accidents at plate tracks though, there are remarkably few injuries. Let's not take focus away from NASCAR's duty here.