The Wednesday afternoon practice at Daytona had to be cut short following a seven-car pileup on the front straightaway, near the flagstand and start/finish line. The red flag was brought out, and once the track was cleared the catch fencing on the outside of the track needed to be repaired. As a result, the second practice of the day was delayed.
It appeared that there was some contact between Matt Kenseth and Joey Logano to start the chain reaction wreck. The two cars also collided in Saturday night’s Sprint Unlimited and caused a major crash in that race as well. Paul Menard, Parker Kligerman, Ryan Truex, Dave Blaney and Trevor Bayne were also involved in the seven car incident.
All seven drivers were checked and released from the infield care centre.
“I thought the 20 (Kenseth) was going to the bottom, and it hooked them, that’s partially my fault,” Logano said. “I was working a bit too hard there. Thought he was going to the bottom. That’s just what happens. Unfortunate a lot of cars got torn up there.”
Here was Kenseth’s take: “It kind of started we were running two-wide, and I couldn’t clear the 27. It got tight into (Turn) 3. We all lost a lot of speed. I was trying to stay straight. Kind of clipped my right rear, and it seemed to trigger the wreck.”
“I know what happened, the front half of the 20 got squirrely looking,” Menard said. “It turns out Joey was bump drafting him in the pack … and I guess that’s the end result. Fortunately Parker is OK.”
Truex stated: “We were running well in the draft. I was right behind the 22 for a while. I checked up, and I got hit from behind, and that was all I could do. We didn’t deserve that all. Then the 30 was on my windshield. It was a brand new car. We have to race our way in. A shame we lost a really good car. That’s a big wreck for practice.”
It was a new expericence for Kligerman.
“I guess that was the first time I’ve ever flipped over. Never done that before in a race car,” said Kligerman. “I assumed it would be rougher, but it was actually really soft. I saw the whole thing go down. I’m up in the fence kind of floating along. Thankfully none of the fans got injured …. Obviously, it was a scary situation when a car gets that close to the fence. Then it just flipped over softly, and I slid on the roof. I guess the strongest thing going through me at that time was anger over the wreck. Most importantly is the fans are okay and I’m OK.”
“They slaved on that race car. To have a quick race car in the draft, I was trying to back out of the draft, pack it up and wait until tomorrow. The 22 was being overly aggressive. He’s supposed to be a veteran. Supposed to be the best of the best, but he was racing like the end of the Daytona 500. I don’t quite understand that one. We’ll have to look at our backup car situation.”
The wreck means that Logano, Kligerman, Menard, Truex, and Blaney are all headed for backup cars. Brian Vickers was involved in an earlier crash and will also have to use his back-up car. Those headed for backups will also have to start at the back of Thursday’s two 150-mile Budweiser Duel qualifying races.
Menard, who led one of Saturday’s practice sessions and had had one of the faster cars, is also bound for a backup.
“We had a really fast Chevrolet, all the RCR cars were extremely fast. Our backup car is pretty good, too,” he said. “It comes out of the same shop, obviously. It’s not as good as our primary because it’s our backup. Sometimes a slower car drives a little better too, so we’ll see. I have no reservations about the 150. We’ll try to race our hardest and get the best starting position we can.”
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Main Photo Credit: Luigi Rosa, Flickr
