There doesn’t tend to be any small crashes in NASCAR – especially in the ‘restrictor plate’ races at the superspeedways of Talladega and Daytona where ‘the big one’ is almost inevitable – but this horrifying wreck at the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona surely has to be one of the biggest of recent times.
A lengthy rain delay pushed the race back into the early hours of Monday morning. Finally, at 2:41am, Dale Earnhardt Jr. crossed the line to win, but behind him in the huge pack of cars all hell broke loose.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRhNXrzMfew
Kevin Harvick made contact with Denny Hamlin, who then span and clipped the #3 car of Austin Dillon. Dillon then speared from the inside of the track, barreled across the pack of cars and smashed straight into the catch fencing before falling back down onto the circuit and sliding across on its roof. As if the accident wasn’t already bad enough, Dillon was then hit again by the unsighted Brad Keselowski.
How in the world did Dillon get out of this without any injuries. Unbelievable pic.twitter.com/757TUqskN3
— Mattzel89 (@Mattzel89) July 6, 2015
There was nothing much left of the car afterwards, the engine block having been completely torn away from the rest of the car, but miraculously Austin Dillon was able to walk free from the wreckage with only a couple of bruises – a testament to the safety of modern stock cars. A few spectators were treated at the circuit for minor injuries whilst one was taken off to hospital, but is in a stable condition.