Kyle Larson's mangled Talladega car leaves drivers concerned about safety

DOVER, Del. — Kyle Larson had an emotional week, and he’s not really an emotional driver.

He escaped serious injury in a crash April 23 at Talladega Superspeedway, where Ryan Preece’s car crushed into Larson’s passenger side at more than 130 mph. 

Then two days later, Larson saw his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman get injured in one of Larson’s High Limit Racing Series sprint-car events. Bowman’s sprint car flipped, and Bowman will miss at least three weeks with a compression fracture in his back.

Larson knows that the nature of racing is dangerous.

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“When you sit back and think about it, I could have very seriously myself hurt [at Talladega],” Larson said. “Thankfully I wasn’t and made it through that. … Then you move forward a couple of days and get to race a sprint car and your teammate gets caught up in a crash and fractures a vertebra.

“Thankfully it wasn’t worse than that. We have seen drivers end up with worse injuries than that. It was an emotional week on that side of things.”

While Bowman’s flip in a sprint car is something commonly seen in that style of racing, the images of Larson’s car in his Talladega accident shook the NASCAR industry. Both drivers walked out of their cars — Larson said he felt fine and Preece said he was sore the next day but was able to do his regular workouts.

But seeing the passenger-side door buckle and the door bars crumble was not something anyone expected to see.

“It’s a bit concerning on a multitude of levels,” said Larson teammate Chase Elliott. “I’m disappointed in that, personally. Last year, the softer hits were a problem, but that’s in preparation for a bigger hit being covered. … I also think it’s probably more of a conversation on how to move forward outside of this [media] room.

“We’ll get it better to where we can be productive on it and not just sit here and run my mouth.”

NASCAR is using computer models to reconstruct the accident as its incident data system collects G-force and other data and combines it with its high-speed camera focused on the driver. It also has chassis designer Dallara consulting on the investigation and also is using an outside company to examine the chassis materials. 

“Everybody knows it was not what they wanted to see,” Larson said. “I’m sure there will be a change going forward somehow.”

NASCAR officials won’t comment on anything they have found as the investigation continues. Because the chassis are single-source suppliers, the teams can’t do much as far as doing their own research for changes. 

“Everyone is concerned,” defending Cup champion Joey Logano said. “They should be. The car fell apart. We all should be concerned. … Something needs to be fixed.

“I don’t know how you fix it, but it’s one of those things.”

Larson went to the NASCAR research and development center Monday to sit in the car as Hendrick and NASCAR engineers examined the car.

No changes were made for the Dover weekend but NASCAR appears to be aggressive in trying to see if any changes will be necessary.

“The car went through somewhat of a disassembly process so more of it could be evaluated and looked at,” HMS President Jeff Andrews said. “Obviously you can see in the pictures there was quite a bit of damage to the door car area, specifically on the right-hand side, that’s moved significantly to the left in the vehicle.

“From this point, it’s just going to be the industry I think working together to really understand and figure out what we need to do to prevent things like that from happening. There certainly … needs to be some short-term discussions and some long-term discussions, as well. NASCAR is very involved, very concerned, had us over there multiple times and I’m sure there will be a lot more discussions in the coming weeks and months on what we do to prevent that going forward.”

Drivers wonder what would happen if the same hit occurred on the driver’s side. A NASCAR spokesman said that the driver’s side, with its additional plates between the body panels and the driver, is multiple times stronger than the passenger side.

The visual, though, causes concern. NASCAR has kept the front of the car relatively stiff in the Next Gen car, which was introduced last year. Multiple drivers suffered concussions, and NASCAR changed the rear and center sections of the car to allow for more crushability.

“The bigger matter is what created the damage — and that is the other car didn’t sustain much damage,” said Kyle Busch. “So, looking at the 41 [of Preece] and seeing some of the stuff on that car, it was a brick getting rammed into a stick of butter. It’s just going to smash it if it’s built too stiff.”

Larson, who indicated he has been injured more in a stock car than in a sprint car, said that NASCAR takes its safety seriously.

“I’m very, very lucky,” Larson said. “Obviously it’s unsettling when you see things that could have easily gotten me in the car, whether it was the bars that completely broke off and could have shanked me or just what if I had a second impact.

“I’m not knocking NASCAR at all. They’ve worked really hard with this car to make it safer. … There’s no other form of racing, in my opinion, that takes safety more serious than them. But that doesn’t mean our sport is safe.”

Part of designing a new car is learning from incidents — nearly every racing series and every car evolves from a safety standpoint from crashes that occur as there is no way to simulate every situation. Larson indicated there are builders of sprint cars who are looking to prevent injuries such as the one Bowman suffered by redesigning frame rails to soften the blow in a flip.

Preece indicated he would research whether he should change anything as far as his belt system following the crash. Although he moved, the fact that his head did not snap nor move side-to-side shows that his head-and-neck restraint did its job.

“If I feel comfortable in my cockpit, I feel safe,” Preece said. “Anything outside of that with car structure and those items, I can only protect the things that are in my little realm, and I make sure that I try to feel as comfortable and safe as I can in there.”

Logano advocated for NASCAR to consider more crash tests — and not through simulation.

“It tells me that we need to crash real cars,” Logano said. “We need to crash test real cars.”

And as the safety developments and testing continues, drivers will continue to race — whether it’s in a stock car or a sprint car or a late model. Most teams (but not allow) likely will continue allowing their drivers to compete in other series.

“That hand-eye coordination and those continued reps, whether it be in the offseason or through the regular season, [the drivers] tell you it’s something that helps them,” Andrews said.

“From our perspective, I think we have to evaluate — we have to look at it and we have to understand what the right balance is. We certainly don’t want to tell them, ‘No’ to something we feel like would help them here on Sunday.”

Thinking Out Loud

NASCAR made an early call to postpone the Cup race at Dover, delivering the news at 10:30 a.m. E.T. for a race scheduled to begin at 1 p.m.

The sanctioning body typically waits a little longer to see if a window will develop to dry the track.

But with its weather partner (The Weather Company) indicating that it was going to be raining for another five hours with no window to try the track, NASCAR made the early call in conjunction with Dover Motor Speedway officials.

NASCAR has plenty of times tried to dry a track only to have rain return, leaving many soaked and frustrated. And if there is a legit chance to get racing in for fans who are at the track, that is the right move.

But it’s also the right move that if the experts say you have no chance of racing — especially in an area under a flood watch — to call it a day and not subject people to traveling in a storm or sitting in their cars.

It certainly is convenient, too, for those in the industry. But that’s not the top priority. The main focus should be the fans, and this was a good move for them.

In The News

–Richard Childress Racing’s appeal to its penalties for what NASCAR said was a violation of the underwing mounting assembly at Martinsville is set for Tuesday. Crew chief Keith Rodden has already served his two-race suspension (Talladega and Dover) but the team hopes to see a reduction in the points penalty (60 regular-season points and five playoff points).

–Kyle Larson will compete in the Xfinity Series race at Darlington later this month as he drives the Kaulig Racing No. 10 car.

–Trackhouse Racing co-owner Pitbull has titled his upcoming album … “Trackhouse.” Pitbull said doing it isn’t a publicity stunt but a way to tell the Trackhouse story.

Social Spotlight

Stat of the Day

Five times in the last eight races at Dover qualifying wasn’t held, either because of accelerated scheduling for COVID-19 protocols or because of rain.

They Said It

“If one happened this year and the other happened next year, would we be having the same conversation? Probably not. I think them being back-to-back makes it look a little worse than the reality.” —Chase Elliott on his injury and that of teammate Alex Bowman.

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including the past 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass, and sign up for the FOX Sports NASCAR Newsletter with Bob Pockrass.

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