Sunday’s Daytona saw the most cars involved in crashes in that event since the 2019 race and ended a Daytona Speedweeks that saw nearly 100 vehicles in the Cup, Xfinity and Craftsman Truck Series involved in accidents.
This year’s Daytona 500 had 35 of the 41 cars in the race involved in an accident based on the NASCAR race report and information from Racing Insights.
That’s the most number of cars in a crash in the Daytona 500 since 37 were involved in incidents in the 2019 race.
William Byron was running seventh on the backstretch on the final lap when the leaders wrecked Sunday. He escaped the chaos and went on to win the race for the second consecutive year.
Denny Hamlin led on the backstretch of the final lap before contact caused him to crash, ending his bid for a fourth Daytona 500 victory.
“It’s such a (expletive) crapshoot now,” Hamlin said on his podcast “Actions Detrimental” of what racing at superspeedways has become “I hate that what is supposed to be our most prestigious race, a showcase of heroes, is luck. It is luck. I don’t care how else you want to say it.
“It is luck. It’s luck because … you just have to avoid the wrecks. … I’ve grown really, really agitated with how we’ve gotten here.”
Ryan Preece was among those who crashed in Sunday’s Daytona 500. His car went airborne. It marked the second time in the past two years his car has gotten up in the air at Daytona International Speedway.
That Preece walked away from such an accident showed the focus on safety NASCAR has had for years, but Preece doesn’t want to continue to be in accidents where his car gets off the ground.
“I don’t know what the right thing to say right now is,” Preece said after exiting the infield care center Sunday, “but I think the thing I want to say as a father, as a racer, is we keep beating on a door hoping for a different result.
“I think we know there’s a problem at superspeedways. I don’t want to be the example of when it finally gets somebody. I don’t want it to be me. I’ve got a 2-year-old daughter. … Something needs to be done because cars lifting off the ground like that. That felt, honestly, worse than Daytona in (August) ’23.”
NASCAR officials inspected the safety elements of the car at the track and were scheduled to go to RFK Racing on Tuesday to look further at the car, Elton Sawyer, NASCAR senior vice president of competition, said Tuesday morning on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
Since 2017, every Daytona 500 has had at least 25 cars involved in crashes. In that time the average number of cars in crashes per Daytona 500 is 31.
But it’s not just the Daytona 500 that has seen a number of cars wreck.
There were 13 cars involved in crashes in the two qualifying races Thursday night, meaning 48 Cup cars were involved in accidents this past week.
That is half the total of 96 vehicles in accidents last week in Cup, Xfinity and Trucks. There were 30 cars involved in crashes in the Xfinity race and 18 vehicles involved in the Truck race.
The 96 vehicles in crashes this last week in NASCAR’s top three series was thee shy last year’s total.
From 2015-21, there were an average of 95.3 vehicles in accidents during Daytona Speedweeks in Cup, Xfinity and Trucks. Those numbers included the Clash, the exhibition race that moved from Daytona after the 2021 season.
The number of cars in crashes during Daytona Speedweeks saw a brief decline after the Clash left. The first two years (2022 and ’23) without the Clash, the average number of vehicles in a crash during Speedweeks was 69.5.
The past two years has seen the average number of vehicles in a crash during Speedweeks climb to 97.5.
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