During a discussion amongst classmates at Georgia State University’s Baptist Collegiate Ministries about “playing God” in some scientific discovery, the smartest debater in the bunch looked at me and said, “Don’t we play God every time we strap ourselves in metal cages and launch off at 65 miles per hour? We weren’t naturally made for that.” Andrew Fleishman unsurprisingly is now a successful lawyer. His dead-pan philosophical axiom comes to mind as I reflect on my moments on pit road and in the NASCAR garage following Ryan Newman’s horrifying crash in the Daytona 500 on Monday.
Since Dale Earnhardt’s tragic death coming to the checkered flag in the 2001 Daytona 500, no NASCAR driver has died on the track.
Jerry Nadeau nearly perished in a career-ending crash at Richmond International Raceway in 2003. Sterling Marlin broke his neck in a crash at that track the year before, but returned to NASCAR. Aric Almirola broke his back in a crash at Kansas Speedway in 2017, but only missed a few races. And many drivers have flipped their cars and hit hard in the fast, large racing packs at Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway in recent years. They all have climbed out and waved to the fans. That didn’t happen for Newman in Monday’s rain-delayed Daytona race.
Instead, the 42-year-old father of two and 2008 Daytona 500 winner sat in a fiery, mangled No. 6 Ford, upside down, after a hundreds-of-yards skid across the start-finish line. Rescue crews and his pit crew were on scene in seconds, and the situation seemed dire when the workers put up black screens to prevent fans from seeing the extrication. When FOX’s TV broadcast bailed with very little post-race coverage, many started thinking about Earnhardt’s 2001 wreck. Newman never keyed the team’s radio when asked by spotter Jason Jarrett if he was okay.
As I waited with other media to get driver interviews, we couldn’t see what was on TV. We saw maybe one replay on the track’s big screens. But as time passed with no word, the mood kept sinking from adrenalized, to anxious, to morose. One reporter told me he was out of the car, but that didn’t mean he climbed out on his own. An ambulance rushed Newman to nearby Halifax Medical, while NASCAR towed what was left of the No. 6 Ford behind partitions in the Cup Series garage.
As a light mist formed around the lights in the cool, humid night, the air should have been filled with yells, fist bumps, and excitement. Denny Hamlin had just won his third 500 in five years, but his celebration powered down to a few smiles and awkward interviews after he and his crew found out Newman didn’t exit his car immediately. The track didn’t even play Hamlin’s numerous interviews on the grandstand PA system. Only those in Victory Lane could hear the NASCAR star on the mic. Not a soul seemed to know anything about Newman’s condition.
From morose, to sickening — the mood soured even more when NASCAR Executive VP Steve O’Donnell took to the media center microphone at 10 p.m., two hours post-race. He shared a statement from Newman’s Roush-Fenway Racing team: the driver was in serious condition with non-life threatening injuries. Sighs of relief exhaled across the nation. And more good news cascaded through Tuesday and Wednesday. Newman was awake, alert, joking, and left the hospital on his feet with his girls two days later. Only God can heal us who play God.
Racing is inherently more dangerous than driving a passenger car, but racers are professionals and have state-of-the-art safety equipment encasing them. We have seat belts, air bags, and now even driving aids to prevent crashes. Autonomous cars continue to develop and decrease human error behind the wheel. But driving is a dangerous responsibility. And it is one that we often take only as seriously as walking or breathing. Steering and accelerating a couple of tons of steel around other human-led bullet pods takes far more than instinct.
Newman’s crash didn’t only happen by chance. He was leading the race with the checkered flag in sight. He did what any driver would and changed lanes in front of eventual second-place finisher Ryan Blaney to thwart the youngster’s attempt at winning in the No. 12 Ford. Newman won his 500 in the Team Penske No. 12, coincidentally, 12 years before. But the block misaligned their cars’ bumpers and pivoted Newman diagonally to the right. Aggression, desperation, miscalculation, contact, skidding, crashing, flight, more crashing, grinding, disintegrating, burning, stopping. Not climbing out.
When we cut across lanes to make an exit or stop on a dime to not miss a turn, we forget what we can cause. When we answer a text momentarily and traffic is stopping ahead, the potential consequence isn’t a forethought. When we drive 10 over the speed limit in heavy rain and approach a turn, we think we will be fine. But car repairs are a far lesser problem than hospital bills and funerals. We defy death every day behind the wheel, and then some of us don’t.
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