“It probably wasn’t as bad as it looked,” Josh Berry himself declared after escaping his wreck. Yet some of his peers and the NASCAR community were chilled to the core. The late-race crash at Daytona last weekend caused some goosebumps as Berry’s No. 4 Ford took an airborne ride and slammed the fence hard. However, Dale Earnhardt Jr. dialed down the tensions with his bold take.

And the 26-time Cup-winning veteran driver is not alone in harboring his views. Bubba Wallace, the 23XI Racing driver currently battling with the playoffs, also did not bat an eyelid. According to these drivers, wrecks of this kind have defined NASCAR for ages.

With two laps to go in the Coke Zero Sugar 400, Austin Cindric’s No. 2 Ford caught the right rear of the No. 4, but Josh Berry had a longer trip as his 3400 lb race car refused to stay on the ground. After the scary debacle, paramedics and firefighters surrounded his car, and Berry came out unscathed. Martin Truex Jr. bashed NASCAR for its lackluster safety protocol, especially after its shark fin experiment following Corey LaJoie’s crash in Michigan. Yet Dale Jr. was not so bothered.

“It’s been an issue for over 45 years. If you wanna go fast you gonna have to realize the repercussions when it goes wrong.” That is what Dale Earnhardt Jr. posted about Josh Berry’s wreck.

Now, even Bubba Wallace sides with Dale Jr. in this opinion, albeit admitting the crazy frequency of blow-over wrecks recently. Wallace said, “I’m with you, right? Cars go fast, they’re gonna flip. Knock on wood, I’ve never flipped in my career, I’ve gotten close…It has been kind of crazy the last two weeks, we have seen what, four flips now? Three on the Cup side. It’s just been…the wrong spot at the wrong time.”

While LaJoie’s wreck was caused by a mysterious headwind, Bubba Wallace reasoned that Berry’s wreck has been a staple for years. “That wind was gusting so hard, we had a massive headwind in Michigan. That plays a factor. I think LaJoie’s is the only one that was like, ‘What happened there?’ The other stuff is what we have seen years down the road, right? So it’s simple enough – don’t crash, don’t flip. I don’t have anything else to add to that.” 

Indeed, flips like Josh Berry’s have dotted NASCAR history. Although that does include some of the most bone-chilling wrecks in the sport.

Earlier wrecks that jittered NASCAR

Driving over 200 mph in heavy-stock V8 engine stock cars has its caveats. It is coupled with the fact that NASCAR drivers race so close to each other, frequently trading paint and bumping fenders. So the sport’s history is no stranger to the crash that Josh Berry witnessed last weekend. The most recent example should be Ryan Preece’s wreck last year on the same track, as his car tumbled a dozen times on the grassy stretch. Earlier though, we had some notable incidents that rank as the worst crashes.

Rusty Wallace aimed to win the 1993 Winston 500 until Dale Earnhardt Sr. bumped his car. It caused Wallace’s No. 2 machine to spin on the front stretch, take flight, and flip several times. The tremendous speed of these events battered his car to where Wallace was visible. The incident luckily did not cause severe injuries other than some minor ones and a cast on his hand.

Then Geoff Bodine‘s 2000 crash at Daytona was probably the worst. His car violently hit the catch fence and made several flips on the ground. This accident left Bodine with a concussion, facial laceration, multiple bruises, a right wrist fracture, and a small fracture to a vertebra.

Evidently, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Bubba Wallace correctly deduced Berry’s wreck as nothing new. Yet NASCAR needs to look into revamping their shark fin feature.