Following the violent wreck that Erik Jones was part of at Talladega, NASCAR has taken his No. 43 Toyota Camry for further inspection. This is in line with the response to previous wrecks at superspeedways.
Erik Jones and the Toyota group were undercutting the field on pit strategy. It almost worked, too. By pulling off into their own pack, the Toyotas were able to run full-speed laps while the rest of the field was fuel-saving. It was going great until it wasn’t.
A couple of aggressive and ill-timed pushes got the line sideways. John Hunter Nemechek to Bubba Wallace to Erik Jones. Even Denny Hamlin was a victim of the incident. Jones did take the brunt of the wreck, going straight up and into the wall head-on.
NASCAR is taking the cars of Alex Bowman and Chris Buescher to the R&D Center for wind tunnel testing. They have also taken Jones’ car, which will likely be analyzed to figure out how the car crumpled, the safety flaws, potential improvements, and more.
Last year in the GEICO 500 it was the Ryan Preece and Kyle Larson wreck that caused NASCAR to have concern. Preece hit the passenger side of Larson’s car going well over 100 MPH as Larson sat still. That wreck led to updates to the Next Gen car with gusset plates being added to reinforce the frame of the car.
NASCAR is a violent sport. With all of the safety advancements made, it’s hard to remember that. We often talks about the risk that other athletes take in contact sports. Racing isn’t necessarily a contact sport, but the risk involved can be life or death.
Erik Jones released from the hospital
It was scary to hear Erik Jones after his wreck. He radioed in complaining about his back being in pain. However, he left the car under his own power and was checked out at the care center. Then he was released. Jones even did media interviews.
Soon after that, Jones was experiencing some kind of discomfort or pain because he went back to the infield care center at Talladega. From there, he was taken to a local hospital to get further evaluation.
There has been no update on any potential injuries, but Jones was released from the hospital just before midnight local time on Sunday night. From there he was able to fly back home to North Carolina.
NASCAR is going to take a look at the No. 43 car and diagnose it as best they can. I’m not sure what they can do to improve the way the car reacted to that wreck. However, it is clear that safety technology has come a long way in the last 20-25 years. Those wrecks used to end in injury and at times, death in the past. SAFER Barriers and other safety updates have made a huge difference in motorsports.
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