Ryan Newman‘s scary crash during the Daytona 500 on Monday was not the first time the driver has been involved in a crash while racing. In 2013, Newman crashed during a May race at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama and slammed NASCAR in comments he made after the race, which are resurfacing after Monday’s crash in Daytona.
Ryan Newman post crash interview 2013 talladega #RyanNewman #DAYTONA500 #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/Erwaj66FgP
— Dolan🗣💯 (@spicygoober) February 19, 2020
“I am doing this interview to let everybody know I’m all right,” Newman told reporters at the time, via ESPN. “They can build safer race cars, they can build safer walls. But they can’t get their heads out of their a—es far enough to keep them on the race track, and that’s pretty disappointing.
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“I wanted to make sure I get that point across. Y’all can figure out who ‘they’ is. That’s no way to end a race. Our car was much better than that,” he continued. “That’s just poor judgment in restarting the race, poor judgment. … I mean, you got what you wanted, but poor judgment and running in the dark and running in the rain. That’s it, thank you.”
Newman has also been involved in other crashes including a 2003 incident in which his car flipped several times and landed on its roof at the Daytona 500 and a similar crash in 2009 at Talladega. In 2010, he was fined by NASCAR after he made comments about the spring race at Talladega.
“My issue has and always has been, because I seem to be the reciprocate of whatever airborne disease that we have in NASCAR, is that either somebody lands on me or I land on somebody,” he said in 2013, noting that he chose his words carefully to avoid being fined by NASCAR. “We’ve proven it’s not safe for the fans. … It’s frustrating, and I think I voiced my frustration very fairly. I could have said a lot more and took a penalty, but I chose not to. I think I took a pretty high road.”
The driver added that he said he tried to call at least one NASCAR official that week to share his thoughts on how to make restrictor-plate racing safer but received no response.
“I’d have to say, if they had a driver who was an engineer that understood the race cars more than anybody else, or more than the average [driver], you’d think they would consider my opinion and my education,” Newman said. “But I haven’t seen that yet.”
Photo Credit: Getty / Jared C. Tilton
