The Daytona International Speedway is seen as the hallowed grounds for NASCAR drivers. A win in the Daytona 500 and your name is forever etched in the history books. But, in the modern era of NASCAR racing, the high banks of Daytona have become infamous for the wild crashes and flips. And Ryan Preece for some reason has always found himself on the receiving end of violent crashes.

During last Sunday’s season-opening race, The RFK Racing driver found himself stranded flipping inside of his No. 60 Ford Mustang with four laps to go. Unlike his last incident, Preece’s race car launched in the air doing a wheelie and then rolled over taking hard hits after making contact with the outside wall. Fortunately, he didn’t sustain any major injuries but made an emotional plea to NASCAR. “When the car took off, I got real quiet, all I thought about was my daughter. “

The safety features on the Next Gen cars and in the modern era are robust, but for how long. And Preece’s incident certainly highlights the major issue NASCAR is struggling with right now. The question now begs is can NASCAR do something to curb the wild flipping of the race car? Not with a band-aid solution like a shark fin or roof flaps, but with actual style or superspeedway racing. While the sanctioning body has been mute to react to Sunday’s incident, Denny Hamlin just might have a solution to fix the superspeedway racing.

Denny Hamlin is back with his demands for more horsepower

This is not the first time we’ve seen Next Gen flipping on the racetrack. Last year the likes of Josh Berry and Corey LaJoie found themselves in a similar situation as Preece. In response, NASCAR added more aerodynamic changes to the car adding a shark fin to the right side. But again this was just a reaction and a temporary fix from NASCAR to control to outburst from the racing community with regards to the safety of the race cars. Now that, the sanctioning body is in a similar predicament and mute over the incident will an instant reaction make any major impact on speedway racing? Denny Hamlin doesn’t think so.

Rather he would like NASCAR to address the root cause here, which he feels is the superspeedway package and lack of speed on the cars. “Let’s be a little careful with these ‘Knee-jerk reactions’ because they are why we got to run 175mph on these tracks and it’s why we’re crashing each other so hard. I’d rather let us run 200 mph with a little more space and it would be less dangerous. I am telling you it would be.” Hamlin opined on his podcast Actions Detrimental.

The veteran driver believes that with the spec car and downforce it produces, drivers are left with no choice but to race in packs. Without the draft and pack racing, the drivers would not be able to make any significant gains on the racetrack. The only way to maintain track position or move ahead in the field is with aggressive pushes and bumps, or on the pit road. All of this then contributes to the high-pressure situation where drivers feel that the only way to clinch the win or get a better position is through roughing each other up. Hamlin himself received similar treatment on the final lap when Cole Custer slammed doors with the #11 race car.

Speaking further Hamlim highlighted how egregious the crash impact was for Preece, and no he wasn’t talking about the wild flips. When he said that this wreck was harder on him than the flip I would agree 100% when watching it anytime your car comes down like flat on the bottom I mean it’s back breaker. It’s the wreck not the flip, the flip is gonna get all the air time but when his car slams back down on the ground, I can’t tell you how hard that hurts. It is really bad for the spine,”  

Hamlin pondered that NASCAR had made strides in 1994 in response to preventing airborne crashes with measures like roof flaps, designed to disrupt airflow and keep cars grounded. However, as seen with Ryan Preece’s recent wreck, these efforts still have limits. His car lifted off despite these safety features, underscoring the need for further innovations, such as enhanced aerodynamics and better energy-absorbing materials. Ultimately, these advancements are not just technical; they are essential for ensuring the safety of drivers who risk everything on the track. 

However, on the flip side of this story, a few experts from the racing community sided with NASCAR. They even appreciate the safety features that they’ve brought to the sport.

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Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi bat out for NASCAR

Race cars have been flipping ever since NASCAR started racing. Ryan Newman would know a thing or two about it as he often found himself flipping like Preece. While, there has to be discussion regarding the superspeedway package and style of racing, when it comes to safety mechanisms on the Next Gen car, it did the job. Imagine, the No. 60 car hitting the outside wall without the safer barrier or Preece without the HANS device, a lot of things could’ve gone south.

Reacting to the crash, Jeff Gluck added, “Obviously glad he’s not injured. But, man, I kind of agree that we all sort of take the safety part for granted sometimes because these guys keep getting in super vicious wrecks and walking away. I’m not saying it’s lucky, because NASCAR in the R&D department, safety department, they have done an incredible job. But like just the angles that these guys had, it wouldn’t take much, I guess, and this is where the lucky part comes in, if another car had come along and hit him while he’s in the air, then he goes up into the actual fence, the catch fence, it tears the car apart, shreds it.”

Bianchi also added his take on, stating, “What I will say is the bar that Ryan… to NASCAR’s credit, every time there’s a big accident they go back, they re-evaluate and they say, ‘OK, we need to do X, Y, Z.’ So it’s always a continuous evolution. And the bars they’ve put in after some of the recent crashes they have had certainly helped Ryan Preece tonight. Look at the construction of the roof. It was largely intact. That’s a huge testament to this car.”

It will be interesting to see what NASCAR’s response will be in the aftermath of this horrifying crash at Daytona 500.