After Ryan Newman crashed during the final lap of this year’s Daytona 500 Monday night, the driver has received an outpouring of support from fans everywhere. However, some of the sentiments have ended up in the wrong comments section. In the day since the crash, Newman’s fans have been commenting on actress Ryan Whitney Newman’s most recent post, which was made on Jan. 1.
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“Cheers to the new year,” read her caption, which had a handful of comments from six weeks back.
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However, since yesterday, several comments have cropped up meant for Ryan Newman wishing him a speedy recovery. While Whitney Newman, an actress who was a regular in the Sharknado franchise, does have a verified account, a cursory glimpse of her timeline — including the most recent post — does indicate it’s not Ryan Newman, racecar driver.
One commenter even asked, “How [the f-] do these people not make the connection that this person isn’t Ryan Newman?”
Several others simply pointed out Newman’s actual Instagram handle, @ryannewman1977.
Newman’s crash occurred just before he would have crossed the finish line. After his car flipped over several times and briefly caught fire, he was taken to a nearby hospital. Earlier on Tuesday, it was reported that Newman was “awake and speaking,” which came as a huge relief to racing fans.
Following the crash, Denny Hamlin was declared the winner, making it his third victory in as many years at the Daytona 500. Though Hamlin was spotted celebrating afterward, both he and FOX came under fire from fans, given that very little was known about Newman’s condition at the time.
Hamlin has since clarified why he was celebrating and offered his support to Newman as well.
In April of last year, Newman himself told NBC Sports that he called into question the safety precautions around racing after clocking speeds just over 204 mph.
“204 is way too fast,” Newman 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. 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. 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.”
