“Real Erik Died in the Hospital”- NASCAR’s Shady Involvement Sniffed after Injured LMC Star’s Shocking Next Gen Defense

In 2022, Chase Elliot described NASCAR’s Next Gen car as a step backward, echoing the sentiments of fellow drivers Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick. The safety mechanism of the car has been under the scanner ever since. Fast forward to 2024, the brutal Erik Jones crash at Talladega has once again raised questions over driver safety, but the Legacy Motor Club driver’s comments have left fans wondering whether NASCAR had something to do with it.

The crash involving the Jones pretty much wiped out half of the Toyota Camry stable, with Jones suffering the worst from the wreck. Upon further medical assessment, they found out that the driver had a compression fracture in his lower back. Many considered this strange, given how NASCAR vouches for their cars to be safer than ever before.

However, trying to clear the air, Jones downplayed any concerns about the safety of the race in a press briefing at Dover, saying, “The Next-Gen car gets a bad rap. At the end of the day, I think the car did its job.” Interestingly, he compared his wreck to Ryan Blaney’s from last summer’s Daytona race. While the Penske star managed to come out of that incident unscathed, Jones wasn’t so lucky last weekend.

After the crash on Lap 157, Jones went to the infield care center where he was evaluated and released. However, he returned to the care center after experiencing pain in his back. Jones said, “It hurt when I crashed. I’ve never broken a bone in my life, so I didn’t even know what that would feel like. I got out of the car on my own and I was feeling better. Obviously, adrenaline is going and I’m pumped up still.”

On the second evaluation, X-rays were conducted, and he was then transported to a local hospital where he was diagnosed with a compression fracture which means he will miss this week’s race at Dover. Still one of the talking points in the aftermath was Jones’ defense of NASCAR which left fans unimpressed.

“Why are the drivers scared?” Fans react to Erik Jones’ statement about Next Gen cars

While Erik Jones chose to sidestep the criticism route, some fans weren’t going to accept his explanation without bringing NASCAR into question. Baffled by his statement of the car being safe, fans couldn’t help but suspect NASCAR’s involvement which may have led the driver not to blame the racecar for his injury. Drivers have been vocal about NASCAR’s Next Gen cars so this does comes as a surprise to many.

The inaugural campaign of the Next Gen car in 2022 drew a lot of criticism. That campaign saw Chris Buescher and Joey Logano’s car at Indianapolis Motor Speedway catch fire and Chase Briscoe’s car was the victim at Richmond Raceway. The drivers complained that the hits they took in Next Gen car felt harder than in the previous car.

Meanwhile, another fan saw the funny side to this situation as they shared their imaginative portrayal of how NASCAR may have intimidated Erik Jones. “The NASCAR official standing next to Jones lowers the gun and walks away”.

Well, the drivers have voiced their opinions in the past. After Alex Bowman suffered a concussion after the rear of his car hit a wall at Texas Motor Speedway in 2022, his HMS teammate Chase Elliot was not satisfied with the safety standards. He had said, “These types of incidents that result in injuries … I’m not a doctor, but I’ve watched a lot of cars back into the wall and the guy would be fine. No one’s immune to it. It could be me next week. It could be any of my peers or fellow competitors. I just hate to see us go backward, and I’m afraid that we have.”

On Reddit, one fan couldn’t fathom the fact that the LMC star was still trying to paint a good picture of the Next Gen car, after having faced the scare of a life-threatening injury. “It’s a deepfake, the real Erik died in the hospital,” the Redditor shared in a rather twisted take.

In 2022, Kurt Busch had to withdraw from the playoffs as he was recovering from a concussion in a crash during qualifying at Pennsylvania’s Pocono raceway in a Next Gen car. In the same year during the Texas Playoff race, Alex Bowman spun and backed his car into the outside wall, which gave him a concussion. That injury caused Bowman to miss five races. In the same race, Cody Ware also injured his ankle in a violent crash in turn four.

A fan couldn’t wrap their head around the fact that despite the incidents, the drivers do not have a strong opinion about the race car. Seemingly upset about the ordeal, the fan even painted a grim picture of how the Next Gen car has performed with respect to on-track mishaps.

In 2021 during the development of the Next Gen, there were rumors that the crash test dummy was ‘killed’ during the safety testing. NASCAR denied these reports. Later a Twitter account that appeared to be shared by Steve and Lisa Hmiel, the former of whom worked in NASCAR for three decades, wrote, “So painful to watch the development of the new car. “The engineers could really use a real world guy to temper some of their ideas. Have seen photos of a wrecked car and hearing rumors of sled tests killing the dummy, the car may be too stiff with too few crush zones.” This had prompted a fan to ask “if the test accidents occurred in real life they would likely be fatal? Am I getting that right?” To this Chase Briscoe responded “Correct,” but later deleted his message.

Another X user played detective and went down memory lane to question why NASCAR chose not to share important information regarding the Next Gen crash test results. They also pointed out how Chase Briscoe’s deleted tweet may have been a hint disputing NASCAR’s safety claims.

Fortunately, Jones is all fine after the crash. “It was pretty bad earlier in the week, and I was just resting. By yesterday and today, I’m feeling better and better,” he stated. As of now, there is no timeline for Jones’ return as he has said his evaluation will be “week to week.”For now Corey Heim, Truck Series regular will fill in for Jones in the No. 43 this weekend at Dover.