Like so many in the NASCAR world reacting to Ryan Newman’s terrifying wreck on the last lap of the 2020 Daytona 500, Kyle Busch said he feared the worst — “anybody would, right?” — but “you’ve always got to hope for the best.”
Newman crashed at the end of the final lap of Monday’s rain-delayed race. His No. 6 Ford turned, hit the wall and was then hit head-on by Corey LaJoie before landing upside down and sliding off the Daytona International Speedway track. Safety crews attended to Newman, putting out the fire in his car and eventually getting him out of it.
He was taken to a nearby hospital and was eventually released Wednesday, amazingly less than 48 hours after the crash.
Here is the final lap of the Daytona 500 in which Ryan Newman's car was flipped at the line.
We will continue to keep you updated on his status as we learn more. pic.twitter.com/qkEwQBpoP0
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) February 18, 2020
The wreck was a blunt reminder of the dangers of NASCAR, which Busch knows about all too well himself. At the beginning of the 2015 season, Busch wrecked in the second-tier XFINITY Series race at Daytona, breaking his right leg and fracturing his left foot in the closing laps.
At Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Friday, Busch said when someone is injured, like Newman was Monday, it’s also a reminder for the drivers that “it could be any of us in that situation.”
Asked about waiting for updates on Newman’s safety and condition, he said:
“I would sense that all of us are kind of wanting to know as soon as possible to know for ourselves, not necessarily because we want to get it out and leak any sort of news. It’s just a matter of self-assurance that those that you’re racing against are OK.
“It could be any of us in that situation at any particular time, especially with [superspeedway] racing and those places you race so fast and so close together the whole time that those crashes tend to happen a lot.”
The No. 18 Toyota driver — who’s also the defending Cup Series champion – said after his own injury, it was “tough” for him to get back in the car. But he did after missing 11 races and ended up winning his first title in 2015.
Several drivers, including Busch and his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Denny Hamlin, who won his second straight Daytona 500 as Newman was wrecking, have praised the safety developments over the last couple decades.
Terrible wrecks like this happen somewhat regularly at Daytona and Talladega Superspeedway, and the drivers involved are almost always unharmed. But because of that, “sometimes you take it for granted” that drivers will walk way fine, Busch said.
Citing his own injury — plus Hamlin’s fractured back in 2013 and Aric Almirola’s fractured back in 2017 — Busch expanded on the risks drivers face. He continued:
“What we’re doing, the severity of what we’re doing, the course of action of what injury can happen – it can happen in any instance. We’re not invincible. Safety is always an evolution. There’s going to be something else that happens that we have to go through and figure out the circumstances as to why it happened, how can we prevent it from happening again.
“Not sure what all the instances are in the Newman crash, but there still will be something else down the road I’m sure. We saw it with, I think it was, Austin Theriault here, who broke his back in a truck crash years ago. Denny, obviously, his back, as well as Almirola’s.
“There’s a lot of things that will still come of the evolution of safety for all of us. My wreck, we made a lot of changes and advancements — let’s call it — to the race cars, and hopefully, that can help prevent those such injuries happening again.”
Although the specifics of Newman’s injuries remain unknown, he will not be racing this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Ross Chastain is filling in for him in Sunday’s Pennzoil 400.
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