LaJoie said it’s part of the aggressiveness that has become standard in speedway racing. “I was shocked that there was as much pushing and shoving going on as there was there at the beginning,” Chase Elliott said after his runner-up finish. Sixteen cars wrecked shortly before lightning and rain delayed the race for more than five hours last weekend. There were 21 cars collected in a crash in the 2019 Daytona 500, the highest total in the last five years. This year’s Daytona 500 marked the fifth consecutive year the event has had at least a 12-car crash. It comes down to who is willing to risk it all, I guess.” “We’re paid to take these risks and to put ourselves in position to win these races. “At the end of the day, we’re in control of our race cars,” said Ryan Preece, who finished sixth in the Daytona 500 after he bounced off the wall on the last lap. Still, the number of cars wrecked at Daytona raises questions about if the risk will become too great. So, when you get in, you know that NASCAR is doing everything they can to keep the cars as safe as possible.” “We’re looking forward to the Next Gen car (in 2022), which is considerably more safe than what we have now. And he’s trying to make these race cars as safe as possible. “He is one of the sharpest guys that I know. “I know John Patalak just from working with him through the development with some of (Randy LaJoie’s) seats over at the R&D Center,” Corey LaJoie said of NASCAR’s senior vice president of innovation and racing development, who oversees the sanctioning body’s safety efforts.
WHO WON THE DAYTONA 500 LAST YEAR DRIVER
That Newman is the only driver to be severely injured in the last five Daytona 500s despite the high crash totals attests to the safety of the cars. Newman was hospitalized for two days with a bruised brain.
He finished ninth in the Daytona 500 - one spot worse than last year when his car slammed into Ryan Newman’s and catapulted Newman’s car across the finish line. “I definitely tug on the belts a little harder at Daytona and Talladega, more so than Martinsville, I can promise you that,” Corey LaJoie said. While this year’s Daytona 500 had its fewest number of cars wrecked compared to the previous two years, there were still 29 of 40 cars damaged in accidents. The five Daytona 500s before that saw 44.8% of the field collected in crashes. In the last five Daytona 500s, 79.5% of the field has been involved in an accident. Nearly 75% of last week’s Daytona 500 field was collected in a crash, continuing an alarming trend for NASCAR’s showcase event.
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