Corey LaJoie said he and Ryan Newman joked laughed about this go-kart story Wednesday night.
NASCAR driver Cory LaJoie didn’t even know who he hit when he smashed into Ryan Newman at the end of the last lap of the 2020 Daytona 500.
And, like so many other people at the track, he didn’t realize the severity of Newman’s situation until he was evaluated and released from the infield care center. He was just excited about the idea of finishing eighth in NASCAR’s biggest race because it was only his third top-10 finish.
But after being cleared by the care center, LaJoie said he learned about the seriousness of Newman’s wreck.
“My stomach dropped, and I thought I was going to puke,” LaJoie told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Thursday.
Racing for the win on the last lap, Newman and his No. 6 Ford was out front with Ryan Blaney in the No. 12 Ford behind him. Blaney said their bumpers got “hooked up wrong,” and Newman’s car turned and hit the wall before LaJoie’s No. 32 Ford collided with him. LaJoie said it “was the hardest hit I’ve had.”
Here is the final lap of the Daytona 500 in which Ryan Newman's car was flipped at the line.
Newman’s car flew through the air before landing upside down and sliding off the track. He was taken to a nearby hospital and was in “serious condition” Monday night, but his injuries were not life threatening, according to his team, Roush Fenway Racing.
LaJoie said it’s been a “very emotional week” for him, Blaney and, of course, Newman. “It seems like all three of us are doing well for the circumstances,” he said.
He also mentioned that he and Newman texted Wednesday night and explained Newman is still in Florida at fellow NASCAR driver (and his fishing buddy) Martin Truex Jr.’s house.
— SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) (@SiriusXMNASCAR) February 20, 2020
On SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, LaJoie said they joked about a gathering for Ford drivers near Pocono Raceway, which included indoor go-karts:
“We texted last night. We shared a couple laughs. … We went to that little slick track in Pocono called S&S [Speedways]. And for whatever reason, Newman and I always found each other, and his big ass looked like Bowser in that little go-kart. We’re sliding around and smashing into each other, and his head is so big he had to hold the roof up because his head was smashing into it.
“So we shared a laugh over [that]. I said, ‘Man, it was almost like we were back at that slick track in Pocono, but unfortunately, we were going 200 miles an hour instead of seven.’ And he thought that was funny. He’s down there still I guess in Martin’s house in Florida. What a blessing to be able to share a laugh with Ryan not even almost 48 hours after everybody assumed the worst.”
LaJoie also explained a little about what it feels like to be in a wreck going about 200 miles an hour. He said hit Newman at basically full speed and got the wind knocked out of him, which is why, when he got out of the car, he fell to his knees.
The photo quickly circulated around NASCAR social media, and LaJoie clarified what exactly what was happening in that moment because, again, he didn’t even realize Newman was injured at that point. He told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio:
“I really didn’t have a grip on what happened until probably Wednesday afternoon. [That’s] when it finally sunk in, and I was able to digest everything feelings wise and just the whole situation because I’ve never really been in a situation like that. I’ve never really been in a big superspeedway crash to that point. So it’s crazy how fast it happens, crazy how people don’t realize how much it hurts when you hit something that hard or that fast.
“If anybody’s gotten in a wreck on the road at 40 miles an hour, they know how much that hurts, and we’re going 190, 200 miles an hour. It definitely makes your body do a lot of funky things it’s not used to. That’s why that little picture that was kind of going viral there on Twitter and Facebook there. I was on my knees. I kind of addressed it on my Instagram.
“People assumed or speculated that I got out because I was in a praying position. I honestly was on my knees because I was in pain. The wind was knocked out of me. Granted, I said a thank you for protection prayer up to the big guy because I knew it was a nasty wreck, but at that point in time, I had no idea who I hit or the severity of it.”
Ryan Newman was released from the hospital less than 48 hours after being in a violent crash at the Daytona 500.
The finish of the 2020 Daytona 500 was the second time I thought I witnessed a race car driver’s death in person. Luckily, neither worst-case scenario came to fruition, but every time a driver survives a violent and horrifying wreck, it’s a reminder of not only how dangerous motor sports can be, but also how racing fans see real-life miracles all the time.
The first crash was at the 2017 Indianapolis 500, when Scott Dixon’s car was shredded to pieces after he made contact with another car, flew through the air and bounced and spun out of control before eventually stopping. Looking at photos and watching the replay, it’s astonishing that Dixon was OK and cleared by the medical care center on the spot at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
In a three-way battle for the win between Ryan Newman, Ryan Blaney and eventual winner Denny Hamlin, Blaney in the No. 12 Ford was pushing Newman in the No. 6 Ford to the finish line because if he couldn’t win, he said he wanted their manufacturer to be in Victory Lane rather than Hamlin’s Toyota.
But, as Blaney explained after the race, they “just got bumpers hooked up wrong and turned” Newman, who slammed into the wall before being hit head-on by Corey LaJoie, going airborne and landing upside down. With sparks and flames shooting out of it, Newman’s car slid from the track to the end of pit road.
For the last few laps of the race, I was standing on pit road parallel to the finish line. My jaw literally dropped as the wreck unfolded right in front of me.
Safety and emergency crews attended to Newman, putting out the flames, getting him out of the car and transporting him to a nearby Daytona Beach hospital. Incredibly, he was released from the hospital Wednesday afternoon.
It’s an actual miracle that less than 48 hours from being in “serious condition” Monday night, Newman was walking out of the hospital with his daughters’ hands in his.
(Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
If you don’t watch NASCAR regularly — and there are a lot of you who don’t — seeing Newman’s wreck was probably exceptionally shocking. It was unreal to those of us who see massive and terrifying wrecks somewhat regularly, so I can’t imagine how general sports fans reacted to it.
I was stunned, like I always am after a car flips, barrel rolls, lands upside down or catches on fire. Now in my fourth season covering NASCAR, I’ve seen so many scary and violent crashes, and the drivers involved almost always walk away unharmed.
In the past, drivers have tragically lost their lives on the track. But, thankfully, it hasn’t happened in NASCAR’s national series in nearly two decades, not since Dale Earnhardt Sr. was killed on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. And with the advancements in safety technology since then, that feels like a different era of NASCAR.
“NASCAR has done a fantastic job of evolution of race cars,” Hamlin said in the post-race press conference. “Helmet manufacturers, suit manufacturers, HANS devices [head and neck support], there’s just been so much development that’s come a long way, and I always think about how blessed I am to come in this sport in 2006 when all that stuff was really being implemented.”
But the frequency at which giant wrecks occur and drivers largely being uninjured is also a testament to how safe the sport has become — while always toeing the line of disaster.
So after Newman’s crash, it wasn’t until a few minutes later while interviewing drivers on pit road that I realized it was taking longer than usual to get Newman out of the car and that he may have been seriously injured. The longer we went without any indication that Newman was OK — and drivers repeatedly asked reporters if we had any updates — the faster my heart raced as I wondered if he was conscious. Or even alive.
It’s a good bet Blaney was wondering the same thing. He was noticeably, and understandably, shaken up by the crash, insisting he wasn’t purposefully spinning Newman out. He said he just wanted to help get a Ford teammate across the finish line first and clearly felt awful about something beyond his control.
Amazingly, it appears Newman is all right. Although we don’t know specifics about any injuries he may have suffered, he went from “serious condition” Monday night to “fully alert” and “joking around” by Wednesday morning to walking out of the hospital later that day.
The timeline is an actual miracle and evidence that — although racing can never be too safe and should always strive to improve — perhaps drivers are more protected than ever.
So if every awful wreck serves as a reminder of just how dangerous NASCAR can be, every driver walking away is a reminder that the sport, thankfully, witnesses miracles all the time.
Dale Jr. said fans attacking Denny Hamlin were being “overly critical.”
Denny Hamlin didn’t know the severity of Ryan Newman’s last-lap crash when he began celebrating his second consecutive Daytona 500 victory. The No. 11 Toyota driver did a burnout on the grass near the frontstretch at Daytona International Speedway and continued his celebration with his team in Victory Lane.
But as soon as they learned Newman — whose car spun, hit the wall before being slammed into by Corey LaJoie, went airborne and slid off the track upside down — might not be OK, they stopped celebrating and team owner Joe Gibbs immediately apologized. Gibbs later apologized again as he, Hamlin and spotter Chris Lambert explained they didn’t realize what was happening.
Newman was taken to a nearby Daytona Beach hospital and was released Wednesday, less than 48 hours after the crash.
Despite the No. 11 team’s explanation, NASCAR fans on Twitter relentlessly criticized Hamlin and the team after the crash for celebrating their win, which Dale Earnhardt Jr. described as “overly critical” with Twitter being “all over the dang place.”
Here is the final lap of the Daytona 500 in which Ryan Newman's car was flipped at the line.
First a foremost I want to give well wishes and prayers to @RyanJNewman. I had absolutely NO IDEA of the severity of the crash until I got to victory lane. There’s very little communication after the finish and i had already unhooked my radio. It’s not anyone’s fault. 🙏Rocket
"I think (fans) are being overly critical of Denny."@DaleJr defended @DennyHamlin after celebrating his Daytona 500 win, comparing it to the celebration after @MW55 won the 2001 race — not knowing what was going on. pic.twitter.com/imaTIZRkA2
“Denny goes and celebrates his win, and he caught a lot of flack for that. And I didn’t feel like that was deserving. I appreciate Joe Gibbs issuing an apology, but I didn’t feel it was necessary. But in this day and time, it certainly is for people get triggered so easily.
“But if people think back [to] Dad’s accident in 2001, Michael celebrated. He was in Victory Lane with his entire team celebrating — the team owned by my dad — before they finally were getting the right information. And no one ever in that moment went, ‘Oh, how dare Michael be celebrating until we figure out what’s going on with Earnhardt?’ So it’s a different time, and people react differently to those type of situations. I think they’re being overly critical of Denny and his team.
“It’s unfortunate that someone in that camp did not get to Denny quicker and tell him to pause and hold on his celebration. It didn’t happen, and it’s unfortunate, but it’s not anyone was right or wrong. It’s just how it played out. And we’ve seen it happen before and we’ve been much less critical in other situations that were extremely similar.”
Earnhardt and podcast co-host Mike Davis also brought up the 2015 summer race at Daytona. Junior won as Austin Dillon was involved in a huge wreck with his No. 3 Chevrolet ending up in the catchfence.
Comparing that situation to the one Hamlin was in Monday night, Earnhardt said he most likely would have been celebrating his win if he hadn’t seen Dillon’s wreck unfold behind him.
“If I had no idea that the 3 car went into the grandstands, I definitely probably would have been celebrating. But I happened to, just at that moment, catch a glimpse of what I thought was the bottom of the car, so in my mind, I’m assuming that the roof of that car had went into the fence, which is a terrible scenario.
“I’ve seen a lot of bad things in racing, and I’ve seen more than one death at a race track. I’ve been at race tracks where people have lost their lives and multiple times. So I feel like Denny, he won the race. He obviously did not see the severity of the crash in the mirror. He did not understand — how could he know that Corey LaJoie made contact with Newman’s car the way it did? None of us would have known, had we not seeing it on TV with the replays and so forth, right? We all had much more, much, much more information than Denny ever had. That’s all I think needs to be said about that.”
Newman’s car flipped over and was hit at full speed by a second car before it slid down the track on its roof. After the collision, he was transported to a hospital where he was listed in serious condition.
People both inside the NASCAR world and out were elated to see Newman walk out of the hospital himself along with his family.
#BREAKING: Ryan Newman is OUT of the hospital and walked out, holding hands with his two young daughters. #NASCAR's Rocketman continues to amaze https://t.co/LnqqlkHKRK
How NASCAR has addressed safety issues since Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s tragic accident at Daytona.
The NASCAR world is in shock after Monday’s Daytona 500 ended with a horrific crash on the last lap that left veteran driver Ryan Newman in “serious condition.”
As the leaders jockeyed for position just before reaching the finish line to take the checkered flag, Newman’s car was bumped from behind and sent spinning into the outside wall at full speed. The vicious impact caused Newman’s car to overturn, and as he slid on his roof along the track, driver Corey LaJoie hit Newman’s car, which continued to slide on its roof all the way to the infield grass. Newman was immediately transported to nearby Halifax Health Medical Center. Fortunately, according to a statement from his team, Roush Fenway Racing, Newman’s injuries are not life-threatening.
Here is the final lap of the Daytona 500 in which Ryan Newman's car was flipped at the line.
Auto racing is an inherently dangerous sport, and accidents such as the one at the end of the Daytona 500 serve as a reminder that each driver is putting their life on the line every weekend.
Following the death of NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Sr. at Daytona in 2001, NASCAR has made driver safety a top priority, and the advancements that have been made over the last two decades – from the design of the car, to the construction of the track walls – may have helped save Newman’s life.
The HANS device
In October of 2001, just after the death of ARCA series driver Blaise Alexander at Charlotte Motor Speedway, NASCAR mandated that all drivers wear a head and neck restraint system called the HANS device starting in the 2002 season. The device is designed to restrict the head movement that can occur due to the rapid deceleration experienced in an accident.
Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY Staff
The SAFER barrier
In 2002, Indianapolis Motor Speedway became the first circuit on the NASCAR schedule to install the SAFER barrier – a wall developed to replace the concrete barriers that were present at tracks that can absorb energy from a collision. The SAFER barrier has become the standard outside wall at all NASCAR tracks, and after Kyle Busch suffered a broken leg at Daytona in 2015 after colliding with an infield wall, the track installed the SAFER barrier along every surface a driver could impact.
AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack
The NASCAR Research and Development Center
In 2003, NASCAR opened its Research and Development Center in North Carolina, where a group studies on-track incidents and devises new ways to keep drivers safe. The R&D Center has a database of precise measurements recorded by each car’s Incident Data Recorder – a “black box” that was implemented in 2002.
Car redesigns
With the introduction of the “Car of Tomorrow” in 2007, NASCAR drivers began racing in a redesigned cockpit that provided better protection in the event of a crash. The driver’s seat was moved away from the sidepanel of the car and more towards the center – and with the introduction of Generation 6 cars, drivers have a larger cockpit that is protected by energy-absorbing material along the frame. In 2021, NASCAR will move to a new, seventh-generation car, which has been designed with safety as a top priority.
Fire safety
NASCAR has also made advancements in fire safety. Starting in 2003, teams were required to install a fire extinguishing cylinder near the fuel cell that is heat activated and releases a fire suppressant in the event of a fire.
Ryan Newman was in a horrific crash on the final lap of the 2020 Daytona 500.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Following Monday’s Daytona 500 finish, the NASCAR world prayed for Ryan Newman, who was in a violent crash at the end of the last lap of the race.
Newman was leading the race at the end, but Ryan Blaney made contact with Newman’s No. 6 Ford from behind and the car turned, flipped upside down and slid from the track at Daytona International Speedway onto pit road while flames and sparks flew out of it.
Although his injuries are “not life threatening,” Newman is being treated at the local Halifax Health Medical Center and is in “serious condition,” according to a statement from Roush Fenway Racing.
Here is the final lap of the Daytona 500 in which Ryan Newman's car was flipped at the line.
Denny Hamlin won his second consecutive Daytona 500 and crossed the finish line to beat out Blaney just as Newman was wrecking. He and his Joe Gibbs Racing team stopped celebrating once they learned the severity of the crash, and Gibbs repeatedly apologized the celebrations.
“I hope he’s all right,” said Blaney, who was clearly distraught over the wreck. “That looked really bad and not something you want to do. Definitely unintentional. … It sucks to lose a race, but you never want to see anyone get hurt.”
Blaney, who finished second, said if he couldn’t win the race, he wanted to help a Ford driver, Newman, win over Hamlin in a Toyota. He said he was trying to push Newman to victory, but they “just got bumpers hooked up wrong and turned him.”
“We’re praying for Ryan,” Hamlin said after the race.
So is the NASCAR world after such a horrific incident.
Dale Jr. thought he’d miss racing less and less with time. He was wrong.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Dale Earnhardt Jr. knew he’d miss being behind the wheel after he retired from racing full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series at the end of the 2017 season. But he also thought those longing feelings would dissipate with time.
Turns out, not only was he wrong, but he said the opposite is actually happening.
“I really miss racing,” Earnhardt said Sunday at Daytona International Speedway during a press conference before the season-opening Daytona 500. He was the honorary starter and waved the first green flag of the race.
“I really miss driving, and it’s getting worse. I thought as I got out of the car and the further I got from my full-time career, the less that would bother me. But it actually is getting worse for some reason.”
So it’s a good thing his one race a year in NASCAR’s second-tier XFINITY Series is coming early in 2020 compared with past seasons.
Earnhardt will drive the No. 8 Chevrolet for his own XFINITY team, JR Motorsports, at Homestead-Miami Speedway in March. For his one-off races in 2018 and 2019, he had to wait until September at Richmond Raceway and August at Darlington Raceway, respectively. He finished fourth at Richmond and fifth at Darlington.
“I really look forward to getting some seat time and smelling the smells and hearing the noises and just enjoying being in the car,” Earnhardt said.
(Sean Gardner/Getty Images)
He’s obviously excited about racing again, but running one race annually comes with plenty of challenges too.
“I’m nervous, I’ll be honest,” Junior admitted with a laugh. “Just being out of the car for a year, it’s kind of tough jumping back in there and getting right back into it and understanding exactly where the limits are.”
Now an analyst for NBC Sports, which broadcasts the second half of the 36-race Cup Series schedule, Earnhardt explained that missing racing and occasionally returning to the track both help him in the booth. He said it helps him recall the mindset and emotions of a driver, which translates to better insight on TV.
But just because he’s missing racing a lot more than he thought he would doesn’t mean he’s ready to add more than one race a season to his schedule. He said he’s talked to a couple Cup Series teams about possibly testing a car because he doesn’t know how the latest package feels with bigger downforce, but races are off the table.
“It’s a healthy thing to miss it, want to do it,” Earnhardt said. “I think it helps me in the booth to have that energy as a fan. So I think one’s plenty. One’s probably more than I should be doing.
“I’ve got my wife and Isla and all that. I should devote as much as I can to them. One’s just perfect.”
Yes, flying inches away from each other, most of the Thunderbirds aren’t facing forward.
This is the Daytona 500 from the Sky: A multi-part series from For The Win looking at NASCAR’s biggest race of the year from an aerial perspective.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — When the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds perform the flyover for Sunday’s Daytona 500 (2:30 p.m. ET, FOX), the six pilots fly their F-16 jets between 18 inches and three feet apart in a delta formation, as they perfectly time their appearance with the end of the national anthem. Specifically, it’s the last word, “brave.”
And even more impressive: Most of the pilots aren’t even looking forward while flying.
As Maj. Michelle Curran, Thunderbird No. 5, explained, Lt. Col. John Caldwell is Thunderbird No. 1 — he’s also known as Boss — and he leads the way in the delta formation as they fly over Daytona International Speedway.
“Everyone is flying off of the jet closer to the boss than them,” Curran told For The Win.
“So we have Thunderbird No. 1 out in the middle. He sets the timing. He’s the one responsible for making sure you see us go right over at the ‘B’ in ‘brave’ in the national anthem. So lots of pressure on him. He’s also flying a nice, smooth platform because we’re on the wings.”
And those pilots on the wings, two on each side of No. 1, are either looking to their right or left during the flyover, rather than looking straight forward, which requires a lot of practice and trust.
“I’m staring at No. 2’s jet and setting references and seeing the back of his head, as he’s looks at Boss, who’s all the way in the middle,” said Curran, who’s only the fifth female Thunderbird and second lead solo pilot for their airshow demonstrations.
“The same thing’s happening the on other side all looking towards the middle. So we often times don’t even know when we actually went over the track because the angle you’re looking at, you can’t really see it. You only know because the boss calls a turn afterwards. He’s like, ‘Right turn!’ And you’re like, ‘Oh we already did it. It’s done. We did the flyover!'”
(John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports)
Curran is in her second year with the Thunderbirds but 11th overall with the U.S. Air Force. So this is her second Daytona 500 flyover, but she had plenty of practice with the Thunderbirds’ nine-month schedule filled with flyovers and airshows.
And she learned their heads turned to the side for flyovers isn’t the most comfortable thing.
“It hurts for a while, and then I think part way through the season, your body adapts to it,” Curran said. “And then by the end of the season, you’re like, ‘OK, it’s time for this to be done because my neck and back are really sore from looking in one direction.’ But you get used to it.”
For the Daytona 500, the F-16 jets at Daytona Beach International Airport adjacent to the Daytona race track. Curran said the Thunderbirds take off between 30 and 45 minutes before the national anthem, and they fly over to the beach to their “hold point,” which is a low air traffic area.
It takes them about 20 minutes to get from the beach airspace to the track, and their team members on the ground are providing updates about the anthem singer’s timing and if that person is a few seconds ahead or behind their usual pace. The good news for them is Air Force Technical Sgt. Nalani Quintello is this year’s singer.
Once the Thunderbirds are on their way to the track, they can speed up or slow down, to a certain extent, to time their flyover with the end of the anthem and “can normally make up the difference,” Curran said.
(Brian Lawdermilk/Getty Images)
The Thunderbirds also have a little something special planned for Sunday’s Daytona 500. It’s called a delta burst, which is when they’re in the standard delta formation and then all go in opposite directions like a firework.
Curran said it’s not standard for a flyover, but they’ve practiced it multiple times. She said the plan is to do a regular flyover and then come back around for the command — “Drivers, start your engines!” — and then do the burst.
“It’s a lot of people’s favorite maneuver, so that’ll be cool,” Curran said.
Three days before the Daytona 500, Bubba Wallace jumped out of a plane into the Daytona track.
This is the Daytona 500 from the Sky: A multi-part series from For The Win looking at NASCAR’s biggest race of the year from an aerial perspective.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — The first time NASCAR driver Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr. went skydiving, he landed inside the track at Daytona International Speedway.
Three days before the NASCAR Cup Series season-opening Daytona 500, the No. 43 Chevrolet driver jumped in tandem out of a plane, thanks to race sponsor, the U.S. Air Force. Although he said they missed their mark near the 2.5-mile track’s start-finish line by about 50 yards, they still comfortably landed on the grass.
“When my first foot went off [the plane], that’s when I was like, ‘I don’t want to do this,'” Wallace told For The Win. “We did a flip out, and I got it all together and we were doing it.”
Wallace — who will start 11th in the Daytona 500 in his Richard Petty Motorsports car — said it was particularly helpful to have someone else, his partner Randy, attached to him and leading the way as they jumped.
“He didn’t force me out, but he was controlling the motions,” Wallace said.
“He started walking, and the next thing you know, we’re off the back of the plane. At that moment right there, I was beyond scared. But it went from nervous to scared to this is awesome in a matter of two to three seconds.”
For about 45 seconds, the 26-year-old driver entering his third full-time Cup Series season said he was free-falling at what felt like 100 miles an hour. But then they pulled their parachute at about 5,000 feet and cruised down into the race track.
It took them about 10 minutes to reach the ground.
(Brian Lawdermilk/Getty Images)
“It’s the same view you have if you’re sitting gin a commercial jet looking out the window,” Wallace said about looking down at the track from the sky.
“But everything’s starting to get bigger and bigger, and the next thing you know, it’s like, ‘Oh man, we’re right over the race track.’ So it was cool.”
Wallace said the Air Force is always asking him what fun things he wants to do with them, but he doesn’t always know what’s on the table.
He’s flown twice in fighter jets — For The Win did too this week — he said, and would definitely go skydiving again.
“It was a ton of fun, really cool experience,” Wallace said.
NASCAR’s spotters guide drivers to the best part of Daytona’s track and keep them out of massive wrecks — or at least try to.
This is the Daytona 500 from the Sky: A multi-part series from For The Win looking at NASCAR’s biggest race of the year from an aerial perspective.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — The Daytona 500 is chaos. Cars careen into each other frequently. Last year, 21 of 40 cars were collected in a giant wreck with just a few laps remaining. The No. 1 factor in whether a driver makes it out clean? A spotter giving him direction through an earpiece based on what he sees from his perch high above Daytona International Speedway.
During the first and biggest race on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule, 40 spotters, one for each entered team, are crammed onto an elevated platform on the roof of the tower, which includes the press box and suites below and hovers over the track’s frontstretch grandstands. The spotters stand isn’t particularly wide, and each spotter only has a couple feet of space to occupy as they’re looking down at the iconic 2.5-mile race track.
They’re armed with binoculars, water, sunscreen, four radios and several spare batteries just in case — Chase Elliott’s spotter, Eddie D’Hondt, even had a sandwich bag filled with throat lozenges Saturday — the spotters’ job at Daytona is simple, in theory: Communicate constantly with the drivers, keep them safe and give your team a chance to win by surviving the all-but-guaranteed carnage.
Eddie D’Hondt, Chase Elliott’s spotter, gets ready for the last Daytona 500 practice.
At one of NASCAR’s longest tracks, the cars draft off each other, racing inches apart and capitalizing on their own momentum or stealing someone else’s. Because of the draft, spotters and drivers agreed the superspeedways — like Daytona, Talladega Superspeedway and Pocono Raceway — are where the spotters are the most crucial. Over their team radios, they’re throwing as much valuable information as they can at the driver — though careful not to talk just to talk — while guiding the car to the lane with the most momentum and keeping it out of trouble.
“[The] spotter is very important at the [superspeedway] races because you can’t see everything that you want to see,” defending Cup Series champion Kyle Busch said. “In a perfect world, if you could drive the race car from outside the back of the car like you can on a video game, that’s where you want to be.”
[lawrence-related id=894941]
The spotters are talking almost constantly, describing as many observations as they can to aid the driver’s decision-making. It’s a wide range, like who’s going two- or three- wide and where, who’s about to push you, who’s making a move, when to throw a block, when they’ve cleared a car, who’s about to wreck, who’s already wrecking and where to go to avoid it.
Seamless communication could be the difference between avoiding a crash by inches or getting your race car towed off the track. Trust between a driver and spotter is critical too because, as defending Daytona 500 champ Denny Hamlin explained, “I do not have time to check to make sure what my spotter is telling me is true.”
Sometimes, even a team’s crew chief will tell the spotter to relay a message about strategy or the car’s handling to the driver instead of jumping on the radio and saying it himself for the sake of continuity.
Similar to the NASCAR saying about superspeedway masters “seeing” the flow of the air, the spotters feel like they can see and sense momentum shifts. But there’s still plenty of luck involved at Daytona, so it’s not everyone’s favorite track.
“Ultimately, it all comes down to the racing gods,” Tony Hirschman, Busch’s spotter, said. “When they’re all wrecking around you, they’re either going to wreck into your lane or wreck away from you, so fingers crossed that you can maybe try to skate on through.”
TJ Majors — who’s entering his 16th full-time Cup Series season and was previously Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s spotter — said he could even look at a random photo or video and identify which car has momentum or is about to make a move.
“I’d keep saying to [Majors] before every race at Daytona: ‘Just remember, TJ, just paint the picture,’” said Earnhardt, who won two Daytona 500s. “I wanted him to feel like I never needed to look in the mirror out of curiosity, and I could always focus on what’s going on in front of me.”
***
Although everyone wants their team to be the last one standing in Victory Lane, working together is advantageous at a track like Daytona. Not only will teammates coordinate to draft with each other, but teams with the same manufacturer, Toyota, Ford or Chevrolet, will fall in line and draft together — at least until the end when it becomes every man for himself. Without a little teamwork, the physics of racing could leave them behind to fend for themselves.
There are also little in-race side deals spotters will sometimes negotiate with each other — like help on a late restart after a caution flag slows the field – but that game plan only works about 15 percent of the time, Hirschman guessed. Even if the spotter agrees to help out another team, perhaps the driver won’t or can’t, depending on how the moment plays out.
The view of the track from the spotters stand at Daytona.
Coordinating outside of their teams isn’t exclusive to races either. Saturday during the final Daytona 500 practice, seven-time champion and No. 48 Chevrolet driver Jimmie Johnson’s spotter, Earl Barban, walked down the spotters stand asking, “Anyone drafting?”
To which Majors, who’s Joey Logano’s spotter for the No. 22 Ford team, replied with a laugh, “Not with you.”
Some ask another team’s spotter to work with them. Others are a little more direct. But it still doesn’t always work out if the drivers aren’t on board or don’t execute properly.
“I don’t ask; I tell,” D’Hondt said. “I’m one of the senior guys up there, so we get a lot of respect. So if I go and tell them something, it’s not really asking.
“And they’re respected too because I’ll get told also, ‘Hey, this is what I’m doing. I need your help.’ We get it. We’re up there 12, 14 hours a day, three days a week. We know everything about each other.”
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They spend that much time together because most spotters work the Cup Series, XFINITY Series and Truck Series. Some even do ARCA races and other lower-tiered events too.
“If you don’t [work the three national series], there’s something wrong with you,” said D’Hondt, who’s entering his 18th year in the Cup Series but has never won the Daytona 500.
Between practices for some series in the morning and races later in the day, spotters can be up on the unshaded stand for hours on hours. Some go up there with coolers with sandwiches, snacks and drinks, while Hirschman even has a folding chair he brings up there to help him “work smarter, not harder” and relax briefly during breaks.
The spotters stand during the last Daytona 500 practice on Saturday.
They each spot from the same place on the roof for each race, and it doesn’t change when they switch teams, Majors explained, because they’re all so used to their specific sight lines on the track.
The car numbers are written on the railing overlooking the track, sometimes along with their names and minimal notes jotted down on masking tape. Hirschman has “CHAMP18N” written next to his name after Busch’s No. 18 Toyota team won it all last season.
The spotters spend significantly more time on the roof of the tower with each other than they do with their own teams, and their schedules often line up together more than with their own team’s crew. Many of them have spent 38 race weekends on roofs at race tracks for years together, if not decades, so they become friends when they’re not competitors.
D’Hondt and TJ Majors, Joey Logano’s spotter and a self-described class clown.
Hirschman said he and Kevin Hamlin, Alex Bowman’s spotter with the No. 88 Chevrolet, are huge Duke fans and went out to dinner and watched the Blue Devils beat UNC the night before the Busch Clash, last weekend’s exhibition race at Daytona. Majors described himself as the class clown in between physically poking Chris Osborne, John Hunter Nemechek’s No. 38 Ford, during Saturday’s Cup practice.
“It’s like going to school,” Majors said. “Every year, you might have one or two new kids but for the most part, it’s the same group. … And it’s like we all have assigned seats because we go to the same spot that we’ve been spotting in for years.”
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Being friends outside of work is great, but that doesn’t prevent plenty of in-race conflicts between spotters when there’s drama on the track.
At the 75-lap Clash last Sunday, Logano and Busch ignited a late wreck, and the finger pointing began. Frustrated, Busch described what appeared to be Logano blocking multiple times as “a few bad decisions,” while the No. 22 Ford driver brushed it off and said he thought he did “a good job blocking.”
As it turns out, their spotters were having the same debate — though it was a bit more intense and with each other, rather than through the media — up on the spotters stand.
Logano and Busch leading a wreck during the Clash, an exhibition event at Daytona International Speedway. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
Hirschman, Busch’s spotter, stands feet away from Majors, Logano’s spotter, on the spotters stand, and he said he only yelled at Majors “a little bit” after the crash took out Busch’s No. 18 Toyota but not the No. 22.
“I told him, ‘If you want to come down here and talk about Old Bay, then we’ll talk about that,’” Majors recalled, saying Hirschman puts the seasoning on everything.
“‘But until then, go back down to your spot!’ He started laughing a little bit for a second, then he got mad again.”
At the Daytona track, spotters are packed fairly close to each other, so although Hirshman and Majors’ fiery exchange wasn’t public, it also wasn’t private.
“Oh, it got pretty heated,” said D’Hondt, who’s stands immediately to the left of Majors and four places to the right of Hirschman. “I was right in the middle of it. TJ’s on one side of me, Tony’s two over on the other side, so I was like the bologna in the sandwich.”
Understandably, both Majors and Hirschman defended their respective drivers. Plus, seeing the wreck unfold only in real time, it’s easy to assume the other spotter and driver are 100 percent wrong.
Majors during the last Daytona 500 practice Saturday.
Days later, they were able to tease each other about it and let go of the blame, agreeing physics may have played the largest role in the wreck with Logano blocking Busch and getting loose, which led to Busch making contact with Logano’s car. But that’s much harder to recognize in the heat of the moment.
“You’ll have three or four different versions of a wreck,” Hirshman said. “You race enough and you’re competitive enough, there’s no angels out there. You’re going to have incidents, and everybody’s take on those vary.”
Stuck in the middle, D’Hondt said when these things happen, it’s best to let the spotters “hash it out” and try not to let it get physical.
“There have been a few physical confrontations, but they’re few and far between,” said Hirschman, who’s entering his ninth season spotting for Busch.
And they don’t take it personally, so it’s easy to let go and resume their friendship when the day is over.
“We’re not driving the cars,” Majors said. “I didn’t turn the wheel, and I know [Hirschman] didn’t work the gas and brake pedal of the car. He didn’t personally drive into us or whatever it was.”
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To win the Daytona 500, everyone on the team has to perform nearly flawlessly, and even then, sometimes that’s not enough if the driver happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, getting collected in a massive wreck kicked off by someone else’s mistake. Communication from spotter to driver doesn’t just need to be constant, but it also needs to be precise and clear.
Spotters during practice for the Daytona 500.
“Everything has to be perfect,” Logano said. “And perfect means that you can still get caught up in something, obviously, out there. But the way you recover from it you need to be perfect.”
Spotters can’t predict every move, they can’t sense every ounce of momentum and, despite their high-tech binoculars, they don’t have a clear view of some parts of the 2.5-mile track. They’ll make mistakes just like drivers and hope an error doesn’t lead to a destroyed race car headed toward the garage. And if a screw-up hurts someone else, the best thing a spotter can do is find the aggrieved spotter up there and apologize.
“I can respect a guy that comes down there and says, ‘Hey, I messed up,’” Majors said.
“You can be mad and disappointed, but what are you going to do? You can’t change it now, so the quicker you can rebound and get yourself in your happy shoes, the better you’ll be.”
