“I Don’t Know What World You Live In” – Kyle Petty Goes on a Ballistic Rant Against NASCAR Fans; Claims Ryan Preece’s Wreck Is “A Calculated Risk”

Every weekend, as fans, we look at 36+ cars driving at full throttle, trying to snatch the lead from each other. However, from the driver’s perspective, the risk is much more acute and visceral. To be strapped to a 670 horsepower beast and drafting alongside others at speeds nearing 200 mph, the NASCAR speedsters put a lot on the line.

Coke Zero Sugar 400 showcased the danger of being a NASCAR driver much too vividly. A majority of the fans were horrified as they saw Ryan Preece’s crash unfolding and shared their concerns online. However, not everybody shares a similar stance. A few days after the incident, NASCAR veteran and NBC broadcaster Kyle Petty bashed the entire NASCAR fandom by spilling the harsh truth behind stock car racing.

Kyle Petty hurls a reality check at NASCAR fans as he talks about the Ryan Preece accident

As they strap themselves to the cars, all drivers make a silent pact that they might not be the ones unbuckling themselves. The risk factor in stock car racing is disturbingly high, and nobody knows on which turn the danger lurks. Safety, hence, cannot take a day off. The organization has always made sure that the drivers remain safe despite the aggression. But the measures that NASCAR takes and improves upon can only bring the danger down; it can never nullify it entirely.

As racing enthusiasts said that they could not believe that something as visibly agonizing as the Ryan Preece accident could happen, Kyle Petty did not hold back. He snapped, saying, “I don’t know what world you live in. You strap a guy in a car and ask him to go run 200 miles an hour in a pack of 30 or 40 cars. This is gonna happen, you’re gonna have these things.”

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“I think every driver that sits in one of these cars, it’s a calculated risk,” said the 63-year-old NBC analyst, adding, “Sometimes in the past we walk away and sometimes in the past people that we love and people that we cared about didn’t walk away.”

According to Petty, merely having SAFER barriers or sturdy Next Gen cars does not warrant a crash-free racing milieu. He admitted, “It lessens it. It brings the odds and puts the odds more in the favor of the driver. But the weakest link in the car is the driver, understand that.”

“And the weakest link in the human body is the brain stem. That is why we have so many concussions. That’s just facts,” he added. Safe to say, both fans and the organizers are happy that Ryan Preece is out of danger now. However, it was not the case in 2015, when NASCAR had to face the aftermath of a major accident involving RCR’s #3 driver, Austin Dillon.

NASCAR got sued for a major wreck involving the #3 in Daytona, 14 years after Dale Earnhardt Sr’s crash

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Throwback to 2015, a nerve-chilling crash that left multiple cars spinning across the track like balls on a billiard table scarred the Coke Zero Sugar 400. Although Dale Earnhardt Jr won the race, the crash became the biggest highlight of the race.

The biggest impact was on Austin Dillon‘s #3 Chevrolet, which looked like a battered matchbox when it was all over. The crew members rushed towards his car and after seeing him doing fine, they raised their thumbs up and the crowd cheered on. The RCR driver staggered out of the seat of his torn-apart car and waved to the crowd.

However, several fans were injured when his car rammed against the wall. One of them was so furious that he lodged a complaint against the Daytona International Speedway. He claimed to have received injuries on his head and shoulder when the flying debris from the crash hit him.

According to autoweek.com, the lawsuit was for “failing to properly remedy known dangerous conditions following continued, numerous injuries to spectators as a result of airborne race cars crashing into the catch fences” and for “failing to conduct a thorough engineering analysis of the catch fences and pre-race inspection of the fences.”

However, both NASCAR and International Speedway Corp. had refused to say anything about the charges pressed against them. This year, though both the major wrecks (involving Ryan Blaney and Ryan Preece) were devastating, fortunately, no one was injured; neither has NASCAR been sued for compromising safety.

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