Newman Unharmed in Crash

After one of the more spectacular accidents in recent Daytona 500 history, Ryan Newman can attest to the safety factors NASCAR mandates for its Winston Cup cars.

Newman, a second-year driver for Roger Penske’s team, got caught in three-wide racing through the fourth turn on Lap 56 of the Daytona 500 on Sunday. After getting knocked into the outside wall, his Dodge Intrepid careened across the track where a gust of wind caused it to pirouette on its nose in the grass before flipping four and a half times and coming to rest on its roof.

Safety officials had a difficult time getting Newman out of what was left of a 3,400-pound race car, most of its parts strewn along the tri-oval. When he climbed from the driver’s cocoon, the huge crowd of more than 225,000 gave him a thunderous cheer.

“I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and got up into the wall,” Newman said.

“We came off three wide and the three cars were as wide as three cars could be.

“We didn’t have any air gap between us.”

Ward Burton, last year’s winner, triggered the accident by tapping Ken Schrader, who in turn bumped Newman.

“We cut a right rear tire,” Burton said. “I told them on the backstretch that I might have a tire going down. I got in the middle of the three [turn], and I thought I’d saved it, but it went down a little bit more and that was it.

“The 12 car [Newman] moved up and I moved up into Schrader. I don’t think the 12 knew I was under him. It was just one of those things. I’m glad no one got hurt.”

Schrader was not so kind in his comments.

“Ward just ran into us, he rear-ended me,” Schrader said. “He made it three-wide and that’s what happened. This isn’t the way we wanted the day to end. I just got a little sod. I think Ryan got most of it. I’m just glad he’s OK, but it was a bad day for a lot of people.”

Newman said when the nose of his Dodge dug into the wet turf, he got a wad of sod in his lap.

“I had a wad of sod about eight inches thick and two feet long sitting in my lap and I couldn’t get out of the car. The car dug into the ground pretty hard.

“I’ll tell you something, I don’t need to go to Disney World. It doesn’t have any rides like I had. When I saw the grass, I was aware of what position I was in, but there comes a time when you lose control and then I was along for the ride.”

That wasn’t the end of the accident. Schrader skidded across the grass, heading for his pit, but couldn’t stop before hitting the wall. About that time, Bobby Labonte was attempting to pit and slammed into Schrader.

“I saw the 12 car flipping,” Labonte said. “I missed it and we came down pit road, and got down to the end, and I was to the inside of a few cars. Then the 49 [Schrader] car came sliding across. I guess he didn’t have any brakes or steering, and I centered him.”