NASCAR Rivals Still Shaking Their Heads Over Crashes by Preece, Blaney at Daytona

• Ryan Preece was involved in the sort of high-speed crash that attracts attention outside the racing world.

• “Blaney’s crash looked pretty reminiscent of somebody else’s (referring to Earnhardt’s), but we have the SAFER barrier,” rival driver Kyle Busch said.

• Defending series champion Joey Logano said both types of crashes “really suck and both hurt a lot.

Which Ryan would you rather be?

In last Saturday’s NASCAR regular-season finale at Daytona International Speedway, Ryan Preece and Ryan Blaney were involved in vicious crashes, each wreck providing a revealing look at the two most significant types of accidents at Daytona.

Preece’s was easily the more spectacular of the two, but Blaney’s could have been the more dangerous.

Bumped in tight traffic at the front, Blaney’s car turned hard right and hit the outside wall at near full speed. The front end of the car pancaked as the SAFER barrier absorbed much of the force of the crash. Without the so-called “soft wall,” Blaney could have suffered serious injuries; instead, he walked away from his mangled car, its front end demolished.

Preece was involved in the sort of high-speed crash that attracts attention outside the racing world. He lost control of his car on the backstretch, and it turned sideways, lifting into the air to begin a series of nauseating side-over-side rolls, some of them completely in the air. The battered car finally landed on its wheels after about 10 seconds of mayhem.

Preece was dazed but was able to stand without assistance after exiting the car. He was held overnight at an area hospital for observation.

Video of Preece’s crash was repeatedly shown even on non-racing television broadcasts as commentators marveled that he not only survived the wreck but also apparently was not significantly injured.

Approaching the Cup Series playoffs, which will begin Sunday at Darlington Raceway, drivers looked back at the Saturday night calamity. Over the years, after tumbling crashes at Daytona and Talladega, in particular, many drivers have said those spectacular wrecks typically are not as bad as hitting the wall head-on at high speed.

Kyle Busch respectfully disagrees.

“I’d rather hit something once than keep getting hit over and over again,” he said. “When you’re in a rollover, you hit your head and you hit it again and you hit it again. It’s like you’re getting punched like a boxer. A boxer might not go out on the first punch, but you hit him five times and he’s out.”

Many cars have crashed head-on into the outside walls at Daytona. Dale Earnhardt Sr. was killed on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500 when his car slammed into the wall front-end first. That, of course, was before the development of SAFER barriers and widespread use of the HANS device.

“Blaney’s crash looked pretty reminiscent of somebody else’s (referring to Earnhardt’s), but we have the SAFER barrier,” Busch said. “The car’s integrity and it being able to crush more was a benefit. You have to be able to disperse that energy.”

Ricky Stenhouse Jr., a short-track veteran who has ridden into the sky in sprint cars, said he prefers the bouncing, rolling sort of crashes over hard wall impacts.

“Watching it, it felt like Preece didn’t have any major impacts,” Stenhouse said. “From that standpoint, I would rather have been in Preece’s car. But I do know what flipping fast like that does to your eyes. That’s really not a comfortable feeling, either. I haven’t seen Preece, but I assume his eyes look like mine after a few sprint car wrecks.”

Busch said Preece’s crash “looked like an iRacing (computer racing) wreck. Just the violent nature of that tumble was so rapid. How do physics do that? That to me was crazy. I’ve been upside down, and those hits aren’t fun. I’m glad he was okay and able to walk away.”

Defending series champion Joey Logano said both types of crashes “really suck and both hurt a lot. I don’t know how we stop the Blaney wreck. It’s just pack racing. But a car catching air and flipping over -- I like to think we can try to fix that. It could have been way worse for Preece.”

NASCAR examined Blaney’s car at Daytona and transported the remains of Preece’s car to the NASCAR Research and Development Center in Concord, North Carolina for more detailed analysis.

NASCAR spokesman Mike Forde said Thursday officials were pleased with how safety improvements on the cars responded during the Preece and Blaney wrecks. He said relatively new safety bars added to the center sides of the cars held up well in the Preece crash. He said officials are considering adding more roll bar padding. He also said the bottom part of Preece’s window net popped loose during the crash but that no part of the driver’s body moved out of the window.

On Thursday, Blaney said his Daytona crash was the hardest hit “by far” he has experienced in a race car. But he said recent improvements to the front end, in effect making it collapse more easily, played a big role in keeping him safe.

“Without those it would have been a lot worse,” he said.

“There’s only so much you can do. I look at what went well and why I’m sitting here today.”