The final lap of the Xfinity Series race at Daytona Saturday (the “Beef: It’s What’s For Dinner 300“) wound up with quite a scary moment, with Myatt Snider’s car going airborne and hitting the catchfence. Here’s a replay looking at that:
"Where is the engine?"
Here's a replay of Myatt Snider's scary crash at Daytona. He's okay. pic.twitter.com/py3Xxt5CVA
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) February 20, 2022
Snider said afterwards that he wound up with only an injured foot, though, and he felt blessed to walk away without further damage.
“It’s the last lap and everybody is trying their best to push as hard as as possible, and I’m trying to keep as much momentum as I can get,” Snider said after exiting the infield care center. “I felt a push, and then I started feeling the car go right and I’m like, ‘Crap. I might be along for a ride here.’ Sure enough, I was.”
…”I got turned around to the side and then I was facing backwards,” Snider said. “I started seeing the racetrack and I’m like, “Hmm, this is getting better as it goes.’ I think what happened is that the left rear started yawing toward the fence and then the fence caught it and that’s what really started tearing everything up.”
“It was violent,” Snider said. “I saw sparks kind of going everywhere. You don’t really know what’s going on. You just know you’re going some direction and it is not the right one. I was just kind of holding on, kind of hunching over and keeping everything together as much as I could.”
…”The whole car was basically in shambles,” he said. “I looked forward when I got out of the car and I see the motor is gone and it looked like the fuel cell was almost gone. There was not much left of that race car.”
Interestingly enough, this crash happened right near former NBA star/current Charlotte Hornets’ owner Michael Jordan:
Michael Jordan and his friends look ok. Except the fence is trash pic.twitter.com/T1p57rxyvP
— McMittens (@McMittens8) February 20, 2022
And Denny Hamlin noted later that part of the suspension here wound up in the grill of a bus:
Front suspension landed in the grill of the bus 😳. pic.twitter.com/yT99LhC1qQ
— Denny Hamlin (@dennyhamlin) February 20, 2022
It’s good to hear that Snider wasn’t hurt too badly in this wreck. That’s certainly a scary moment, but it speaks well for NASCAR’s safety improvements that even a crash like this wasn’t that disastrous for the driver involved.
[NBC Sports; photo from Nigel Cook/The Daytona Beach News-Journal, via USA Today Sports]
