The Yellawood 500 playoffs race at Talladega Superspeedway delivered everything that was expected from it and perhaps even more. The race car drivers were involved in more than beating and banging and gave it their all to get the desired results. It was a scintillating and thrilling display of aggressive racing in stage 1, as drivers pulled three and four wide.

But things started to heat up as the end of the stage started to inch closer. And as the field came to the start-finish line, a big crash unfolded. Alex Bowman ran through the back of Ryan Blaney, who was sent crashing into the outside wall. However, before he could make contact with the wall, the #1 of Ross Chastain took the nasty hit and collected him too in a wild crash.

Both Chastain and Blaney were done for the day. But the Trackhouse Racing driver was the one who came off the worst. After incurring hard hits, the #1 Busch Light Chevy started emitting smoke. Thankfully, Ross Chastain made out of his car unscathed with the help of the AMR safety crew and was released from the infield care center. This wasn’t the only big crash on the day, as with 5 laps to go in the final stage, a total of 28 cars piled up. Setting the record for the biggest crash in NASCAR history. Chastain was able to evade this crash, but he highlighted a big concern from his incident.

Sharing more insights from his horrifying crash at Talladega, Chastain stated that his HANS device snapped in the aftermath of the wreck. The HANS (Head and Neck Support Device) helps the driver mitigate the impact of a hard crash and minimize the risk of potential egregious head injuries that are involved with motor racing. “It did crack my HANS device this weekend.” This was shared by BR Racing on Instagram.

The Talladega race proved to be quite a mess for NASCAR and the race officials over the DVP rules. And now that details of the failure of the HANS device have come out, the fans are in complete disdain. The Reddit community was quick to share their views on opinions on Chastain’s crash and what could’ve led to the cracking of the HANS device.

Fans question NASCAR’s safety mechanism on the Next Gen following Chastain Talladega’s revelation

HANS is mounted on the shoulders of the drivers and is also connected to the helmet. The basic functionality of HANS is to reduce the impact of the crash on the driver. It also limits the movement of the heads of the drivers after a hard impact, which was the case at Talladega. It is indeed rare to see the safety device snap, which led to questions surrounding its functionality and maintenance. “I’m not an expert on these safety devices by any means, but I feel like the HANS Device cracking from a crash is really not good. Either it already had damage/a defect, or that crash was just wicked violent.”

Usually, when the car catches fire, the drivers are quick to pull down the safety net and escape the vehicle. However, in Chastain’s case, his response wasn’t quick, and the neat was pulled down by the safety crew. And the concerning visuals had this race fan worried for a moment. “Honestly, I started fearing the worst; it seemed like it was taking longer than normal for the net to come down and a lotta smoke coming from the engine bay. Hard hard hit.”

This isn’t the first time that the Next Gen car’s safety has come into question. Corey LaJoie and Josh Berry’s race cars flipped wildly in the air and even saw NASCAR make aerodynamic changes to the race car. While the cars stuck to the racetrack with the new intervention by NASCAR. But the hard crashes have got fans concerned with how heavy the hits and crashes are on the body of the racecar. “Yes, I know the car is very safe, but there is no doubting that it overall still is pretty stiff in these crashes, which do make impacts worse than they used to.”

“Yeah, just got the wind knocked out of me.” This was Ryan Blaney’s response to his team after the nasty crash coming to the end of stage 2. It is indeed hard to imagine what could’ve happened to Blaney if he hadn’t collected Chastain and hit the wall head-on. Highlighting the severity of the crash, this fan wrote, “And Blaney got the wind knocked out of him. You could hear it on the in-car audio. It was a nasty hit for both of them.”

The great Dale Earnhardt Sr. lost his life with a basilar skull fracture after he had a hard impact with the wall during the 2001 Daytona 500 race. It was after this tragic loss that NASCAR mandated the use of the HANS device across its three series. But despite all the technological advancement and tweaks, a mechanical failure of this device is indeed a concern, which was put well by a user on Reddit. “Dale Sr. was my first experience with death. I hate that I know so much about basilar skull fractures, but it’s sad to see people losing sight of something that’s killed so many in motorsports.”

What is your take on Ross Chastain’s crash at Talladega, and what steps can NASCAR take to further enhance the safety of the drivers?