Didja see this NASCAR crash?

[JasonEvans]

I know we were all watching the WWCup last night, but I just saw a replay of the crash at the end of the Daytona race... and it was scary/insane! Austin Dillon's car is going 190 MPH and gets flipped into the "catch fence" where it goes from 190 to 0 MPH instantly. Full respect to the guys who design the safety cabins for those cars because the driver's compartment somehow stays together and Austin not only survived, he walked away. Truly insane.

Cue the video in to the :40 mark to see it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7Tj0ykPvUg

--Jason "you have to see this home video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDWMiwN44yA)someone shot from the stands too. WOW!" Evans

[PSurprise]

I know we were all watching the WWCup last night, but I just saw a replay of the crash at the end of the Daytona race... and it was scary/insane! Austin Dillon's car is going 190 MPH and gets flipped into the "catch fence" where it goes from 190 to 0 MPH instantly. Full respect to the guys who design the safety cabins for those cars because the driver's compartment somehow stays together and Austin not only survived, he walked away. Truly insane.

Cue the video in to the :40 mark to see it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7Tj0ykPvUg

--Jason "you have to see this home video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDWMiwN44yA)someone shot from the stands too. WOW!" Evans

Directed by Michael Bay!

Hope everyone is/was okay.

[Tom B.]

I know we were all watching the WWCup last night, but I just saw a replay of the crash at the end of the Daytona race... and it was scary/insane! Austin Dillon's car is going 190 MPH and gets flipped into the "catch fence" where it goes from 190 to 0 MPH instantly. Full respect to the guys who design the safety cabins for those cars because the driver's compartment somehow stays together and Austin not only survived, he walked away. Truly insane.

Cue the video in to the :40 mark to see it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7Tj0ykPvUg

--Jason "you have to see this home video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDWMiwN44yA)someone shot from the stands too. WOW!" Evans


The safety cabins are built to stay intact under extreme stress, but the rest of the car is actually designed to come apart like that. Each piece that flies off carries away some kinetic energy that won't have to be absorbed by the driver.

The catch fence itself also absorbed a lot of the energy. Watch the replay again and see how much it bows out towards the stands when Dillon's car hits it. While some of the cables snapped, the fence didn't totally collapse. It bent without breaking, which is again by design.

The most dangerous part of the crash for Dillon probably wasn't actually when he flew into the fence -- it was when the remainder of his car landed back on the track and then got hit from behind by another car. Fortunately for Dillon, the collision wasn't in line with his car's center of mass -- it spun his wreck around, but he wasn't hit with the full force of the energy from the other car.

This is why a guy can walk away from an apocalyptic-looking wreck, like Dillon did -- but a wreck that seems at first blush to be fairly innocuous can actually be far more dangerous the driver. The classic example is the wreck that killed Dale Earnhardt. His car went nose-first into the wall, which at the time was just solid concrete. There was no give in the barrier, and because it wasn't a flying, tumbling wreck, the car didn't come apart. The forward momentum came to hard stop, and almost all of it was absorbed by the driver. Also, at the time, the drivers didn't wear some of the safety equipment that they wear now, like the HANS device. Put all those factors together and you get fatal injuries for the driver.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXGKys62TXw

[roywhite]

Amazing accident, and so glad to see Austin Dillon walk away from it.

He grew up within a couple of miles from where I currently live and work; very popular and humble young guy. Sports note --- he played in the Little League World Series in 2002.

[BD80]

This crash was a trending topic on the Big Blue dating site.

Toward the end of the network coverage they show a slow motion replay from the back of the stands, and there is a guy cheering and pumping his arms as the carnage unfolds. He should have special "Darwin" seats on the other side of the barrier. *

The surviving cockpit reminded me of the final landing scene in "Hot Shots."


*Speaking of Darwin, did anyone else hear the news of the 22 y/o in Maine who set a friggin' firework MORTAR off from on top of his head? He won't be doing it again. And yes, he had been drinking.