You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.™
The wreck Saturday at the Nationwide Race at Daytona.
The race is a who cares nationally till the last moment. Now it is the lead story on every newscast.
Tragedy at Daytona. 28 Injured!
The headlines are disturbing.
It should be about the first woman pole sitter in the history of the Great American Race.
Instead all the talk is about the cataclysmic wreck.
It happens on the final lap in turn 4. Cars are speeding to the finish, they are bumper to bumper, barely a playing card’s width between them.
Then a car comes loose from the pack, another car cuts across the track, cars are backward, smoke is filling the screen, then a car is flying through the air at almost 200 mph.
Suddenly there is an explosion of metal. Car parts are flying. A tire is seen going over the fence into the crowd. A flaming engine is torn out of a chassis. It embeds in the catch fence which is mangled.
In the blink of an eye, cars disintergrate like glass marbles being shattered with a hammer.
The unbelievable horror can only be understood in slow motion.
ESPN reports that at least 28 fans are injured.
2 fans are listed in critical condition.
One person was hit by a flying tire! Can you imagine a race car tire hitting someone at over 150 mph? Oh my God.
Amazingly no driver’s are injured. Not even Kyle Lawson whose car went airborne and was torn apart.
That was the Nationwide race. The Daytona is the superbowl of racing and it ran on Sunday.
The questions being asked have very little to do with racing.
Should NASCAR postpone the race?
Are the car designs flawed?
Is the catch fence enough?
ESPN analysts will say the fence worked and the cars did their job. Nothing is 100 percent safe.
Maybe not but you rarely see 28 fans at an NBA game go to the hospital.
Can you imagine Lebron James driving for a dunk and the backboard collapses and the glass shatters and people are maimed?
Baseball occasionally sees a person struck by a foul ball.
Football fans are most likely to be accosted by an Eagles fan as anything.
Race cars are 2 tons of metal hurtling down a chunk of asphalt at 200 mph.
The race is on. Danica is on the pole. 28 people injured.
Oh by the way, Tony Stewart won the injury marred spectacle.
Jimmy Johnson ended up winning on Sunday.
The victims were remembered, the fence was fixed, NASCAR will move forward.
And that is crazy.™