The racing world has been following all of the developments with Ryan Newman and his health following his scary crash at the Dayton 500 on Monday. Newman’s car went airborne and caught on fire in overtime. He needed to be taken away on an ambulance and went straight to the hospital where he remains on Tuesday.
An update noted that he is awake and is speaking to doctors. Many around the sport and racing fans, in general, have reached out and sent their thoughts and prayers as Newman makes his recovery.
Videos by PopCulture.com
It was almost one year ago in an eerie coincidence that Newman voiced his concern with how fast the cars in NASCAR are able to go. This interaction occurred in April 2019 following the final practice run at the Talladega Superspeedway in which he posted the fastest time among his peers with a recorded top speed of 204.157 mph. He brushed it off by saying, “Pretty much any car could have done that.”
“204 is way too fast,” he explained. “We’ve established that over the last 10 years. That’s when cars get airborne. They raised the back of the cars up an inch and it just packs more air underneath them.”
Newman’s concerns didn’t change anything in the sport. He was asked before that race if anything could be done in the near future to fix it and he simply responded by saying that there’s no going back for them now.
“I hope we keep them on the ground and get lucky because I don’t think they’ve done a good job of keeping them on the ground or making an effort to keep them on the ground,” Newman continued in his frustration. “We’ve got Daytona behind us without getting any cars airborne, at least to my knowledge or recollection. I hope we can keep the string going.”
Monday’s crash following a postponement during Sunday’s start to the Daytona 500 was one of the worst in recent memory. Newman, though, has been in multiple airborne crashes, however, which is where his concern stemmed from.
At the time of his fiery crash, no reported speed has been reported. Due to the majority of cars pushing anywhere between 195-205, it’s likely Newman was somewhere in that range when he lost control of his car.
Fellow racer Clint Bowyer sent out a tweet after the scene unfolded in which he sent his prayers towards Newman and reminded everyone that “we’re all on the road together” and that “this s— is real.”
