DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Kyle Busch has become the unwitting poster boy for NASCAR safety improvements.

It’s not a role he wanted. But now that it’s been thrust upon him, he’s not shying away from taking the lead on suggesting changes.

The Joe Gibbs Racing star said Saturday he would like to see tracks remove grass from areas adjacent to racing surfaces.

“I think that we all need to just take a step and really pour every effort into everywhere around the race tracks,” Busch said at Daytona International Speedway. “In reality, there’s no sense in grass. We have absolutely no reason to have grass at any of these facilities. I think that needs to be one of the next biggest pushes that we can all have.”

Busch’s Toyota slid through a grassy area near Turn 1 at Daytona in the Xfinity Series opener in February. The grass did little to slow down Busch’s car, which slammed into a concrete retaining wall. Busch broke his right leg and left foot in the accident and missed the first 11 Sprint Cup races.

Daytona responded by putting down about 200,000 square feet of asphalt, most of that in the area of Busch’s crash. Daytona also replaced more than 4,000 feet of concrete walls with energy-absorbing SAFER Barrier, commonly called “soft walls.”

Busch lauded the upgrades.

“They wanted to fix it and they wanted to do everything they could do in their power to make sure everything was done right here at the speedway and to make it first class,” he said. “I think they’ve done that. I think there’s certainly always room for improvements. Any facility you go to, I feel like there’s room for improvement. Seeing those done here at Daytona was really good.”

Busch toured Daytona and the changes earlier this week with track president Joie Chitwood and NASCAR executive Mike Helton. Busch made several suggestions, most notably that tracks should remove infield grass that can cause cars to uncontrollably skid, bounce and even flip at high speeds.

“The grass is an issue that I think a lot of the drivers would echo my statements on,” Busch said.

• Rain washed out qualifying for Sunday night’s race at Daytona, where the field was set by practice times.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. will start from the pole because he was fastest in Friday’s first practice session. NASCAR’s most popular driver deliberately ran a very fast lap because his crew chief anticipated rain could interrupt qualifying on Saturday.

Austin Dillon will start second. Jeff Gordon will start 24th in his final race at Daytona.

• Late television broadcaster Steve Byrnes won the Squier-Hall Award for NASCAR media excellence.

FORMULA ONE: Championship leader Lewis Hamilton will start from pole position for the eighth time in nine races as he chases a third British Grand Prix triumph on Sunday.

The defending champion, who clocked 1 minute, 32.248 seconds in qualifying, will share the front row with Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg for the seventh time this year.

There was only a tenth of a second between the pair, who are separated by 10 points at the top of the drivers’ standings.