News regarding any injuries is still trickling in, but the big news from today's NASCAR Nationwide race is the big wreck at the checker--and how car parts made it past the catch fence. NASCAR fan or not, this impacts all motor racing.
Andy Lally (@AndyLally) has been relaying info via Twitter (no, he's not there). I just heard there's info at speedtv.com, but their site is not loading. I'm checking my other sources, too.
Link to our local news coverage: http://www.cfnews13.com/content/news/cfnews13/sports/article.html/content/news/articles/cfn/2013/2/23/stewart_wins_at_dayt.html
Holy cow, that's nuts. I was at Daytona the last time something went through the fence (truck race in 01-ish IIRC), but this seems to be an order of magnitude worse. I hope everyone comes out okay. 
Update from USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nascar/2013/02/23/huge-car-crash-mars-nationwide-series-race-at-daytona/1941529/
cnn.com: http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/23/us/florida-daytona-crash/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
Basically, no details as of 5:22 pm local time. Hopefully, it's not as bad as it looks.
It made me as sick as watching Bodine's truck many years ago. You can see parts go over the fence. The info leaking out is slow which tends to make me think very bad things happened.
So damn sad!
A wheel definitely cleared, and that news enough explains all of the drivers being concerned. Kyle Petty later, in the middle of a sentence talking about the emergency responders and the magnitude of the wreck (when it's drivers you know where to go, but when it's the crowd the medics job becomes so much harder to find and identify those in need), mentioned that debris made it all the way into the upper deck 
The wife says I should have gone, If I caught an engine I could probably keep it.
I was about 200 feet from where Kyle Larson slammed into the car catcher. Got hit with some of the ash from the fireball, but not anything solid. There was one guy hit with a tire and is in the hospital. I'm praying that guy's OK. A couple other people in the stands had minor injuries, but nothing as serious. Well, there was one fan who had to be hauled off before the wreck. Dehydration, apparently.
I was really relieved when Kyle climbed out of what was left of his car and walked away. It was like he only had the middle half of his car left and the back and front were gone.
Glad you're okay, Matt.
Thanks. This wreck is one for the rule book - it wouldn't surprise me if they make a few changes to the car catcher or some other safety items as a result.
I tried to get a closer look at the spot where the fence was bashed in, but they were shooing everyone away who didn't officially belong there.
Looks like it hit right where a crossover gate is. That's unfortunate
i tried watching the video of the end of the race on the NASCAR site- man, that site is infuriating- and they showed a shot of the engine, a wheel, and some of the front frame structure of the car sitting on the spectator side of the fence...
isn't it about time that they took out about 10 rows of seats at the bigger tracks? the newer tracks don't have anyone sitting within about 20 feet of the fence, and i'm sure they did that for a reason..
On SpeedTV they just said two people are in critical condition, but stable. One is a minor. The other has a head injury. Hope everyone recovers fully.
Speed said the RF wheel assembly from Larson's car made it near the top row of the lower level, looked to be about four rows from the top of that level.
They estimated the wheel/ spindle/ rotor/ caliper and a-arm(s) weight at 120-140 pounds.
Wow
hope everyone involved will be OK
Its a real bitch, and I really hope the guy that ate the tire will be ok, but...There is a sign by the spectator entrance of every track I've ever been to talking about the danger inherent in buying a ticket.
I hope the guy gets better, and gets an insurance settlement that will allow him to deal with the consequences, and I hope Daytona, Nascar and all track promoters look hard at their systems to make any improvements that are needed, but mostly I hope the ambulance chasers and safety nazis get shut down, so we don't have to listen to them talk about how people should be able to sit in the lions den with no risk of danger.
http://www.businessinsider.com/video-daytona-crash-as-seen-from-the-stands-2013-2
Video shot from about 4 seats from where the wheel assy landed. That was a bad one. NSFW, language.
Tough to find the line between safe and exciting. I know when we used to go to the local track with the kids we didn't sit anywhere near the bottom of the stands. Their catch fence was chicken wire. Even chain link isn't going to survive that kind of hit and if you made it perfectly safe you might as well stay at home and watch it on TV. The fence would have to be made out of plate steel.
Reuters lists it as 11 injured. 2 critical, 4 on trauma watch, and 5 as non trauma.
turbojunker wrote: Looks like it hit right where a crossover gate is. That's unfortunate
Yep, the car ran smack into the gate. There was so much going on I didn't see the wheel make it through (at about the same time, there was a huge chunk of flaming wreckage flying down the front straight, right in front of me), but it seems the gate came partly open and the wheel flew right through it. They may end up taking out or reinforcing the gates. Other than that, the fence pretty much did its job - there actually aren't seats in front of the gate there, but the tire came in pretty far, as seen in the video.
MadScientistMatt wrote:turbojunker wrote: Looks like it hit right where a crossover gate is. That's unfortunateYep, the car ran smack into the gate. There was so much going on I didn't see the wheel make it through (at about the same time, there was a huge chunk of flaming wreckage flying down the front straight, right in front of me), but it seems the gate came partly open and the wheel flew right through it. They may end up taking out or reinforcing the gates. Other than that, the fence pretty much did its job - there actually aren't seats in front of the gate there, but the tire came in pretty far, as seen in the video.
Matt, there was a video out there (it's gone now) from the infield angle. You and turbojunker's right..the impact was on the crossover gate. But the wheel that went all those rows up actually detached earlier in the accident. It didn't go through the hole, it cleared the fence.
Glad to hear you're OK, dude. I've also seen that smartphone video that's been spread around, and it's really scary.
This is the video that is the scariest. Guy taking the video doesn't realize at first, the tire landed almost right beside him.
It's disgusting, but true (evidenced by the cheers in the youtube videos:) a lot of people watch these races to see the wrecks.
"Good racin'" as NASCAR defines it, is unnecessarily dangerous (see #1.)
At the local dirt track, they have to BEG. berkeleying BEG people to get their kids to get away from the fence. Don't be a dumbberkeley.
I really hope everyone is okay.
The safety fence is being repaired tonight for tomorrows 500 without the crossover gate, may be just a time saver but maybe NASCAR saw it as a safety flaw.
As more and more details and videos trickle in it's a frickin' wonder nobody was killed in that incident.
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