Ryan Newman was involved in a ghastly crash on the final lap of the Daytona 500 on Monday night, hospitalising him with non-life-threatening injuries.
NASCAR delivered the news nearly two hours after Newman was extricated from his car, saying he is in serious condition at nearby Halifax Medical Centre.
The wait for the update was excruciating for fellow NASCAR drivers and fans across auto racing who spent the time wondering how seriously he was hurt.
Safety crews rushed to Newman’s No. 6 Ford and worked to get the 42-year-old driver out of his seat. The car was on fire as it skidded to a stop and had to be turned onto its tyres first.
Fox opted not to broadcast Newman’s removal, which was shielded by large black screens put up by track crews.
Ryan Blaney, who locked bumpers with Newman and turned him sideways, sounded crestfallen.
Corey LaJoie, who slammed into Newman’s sideways car at full speed, watched a replay and insisted he had no way to avoid the contact.
Fox Sports analyst and four-time Cup Series champion Jeff Gordon may summed it up best.
“Safety’s come a long way in this sport, but sometimes we are reminded that it is a very dangerous sport,” Gordon said quietly as the broadcast came to a close with Newman’s condition still unknown.
Breathtaking crashes are common at Daytona International Speedway, where drivers racing for position at 200 mph and in tight quarters often make contact.
Newman’s wreck looked just as awful.
Blaney turned him hard right and into the outside wall. His car immediately flipped and was sliding on its side when LaJoie rammed into it.
“Dang I hope Newman is ok,” LaJoie tweeted. “That is worst case scenerio and I had nowhere to go but smoke.”
Denny Hamlin won the race for Joe Gibbs Racing, his second straight victory in the season opener and third in the last five years. The team celebrated near the start-finish line and again when confetti flew in victory lane, prompting Gibbs to later apologise.
“Some people may have seen us and said, ‘Those guys are celebrating when there’s a serious issue going on,'” Gibbs said. “I apologise to everybody. We really didn’t know. We got in the winner’s circle and then that’s when people told us. I wanted to explain that to everyone.
“That’s what makes it so hard. Such a close-knit community, you know everybody. … If you think about all the wrecks that we’ve had over the last how many number of years, some of them have been real serious. We’ve been real fortunate.”
Newman announced last week he and his wife had split after 16 years of marriage.
They have two daughters together and both girls were at his side in the moments before Sunday’s race began, only to be delayed a day by rain.
