Former McCain consultant Mike Murphy and conservative Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, were caught on live mikes, but off the air, talking to NBC political director Chuck Todd.
Previous accidents in which drivers hit crossover gates were severe, but the gates were in the wall and not the fence for Mike Harmon's accident at Bristol in 2002 and Michael Waltrip's at the same track in 1990.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Michigan, told the Wall Street Journal that the withheld information could have changed the way U.S. officials worked.