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NASCAR driver Ryan Preece, whose car barrel rolled about a dozen times during a terrifying crash at Daytona (watch it in the video above) on Sunday morning (AEST), has been discharged from hospital.
The Stewart-Haas Racing team said Preece was headed home after getting clearance from doctors at a hospital near the track. The team earlier said Preece was “awake, alert and mobile” and “had been communicating with family and friends.”
The 32-year-old Preece was able to climb out of his mangled Ford on with help before emergency workers put him on a gurney and into an ambulance. He initially went to the track’s infield care centre before being transported to hospital for overnight observation.
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Preece tweeted about two hours after the race, posting: “If you want to be a race car driver, you better be tough. … I’m coming back.”
Preece and teammate Chase Briscoe made contact coming out of turn two, and Preece’s car turned hard left and then went into an uncontrollable barrel roll as soon as it slid from the asphalt to the infield grass. The car came to a halt on all four tyres, with some minor damage to the roll cage.
Preece being able to climb out with help was a testament to NASCAR’s Next Gen car, which is considered the safest iteration in its 75-year history.
The car was roundly criticised following its debut last season because rear-impact collisions wreaked havoc on drivers. Kurt Busch suffered a life-changing concussion during a qualifying crash at Pocono Raceway, and Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman missed five races because of a concussion.
Multiple other drivers complained about the violence felt during what they considered routine hits and wondered if they too had suffered head trauma.
NASCAR spent much of last year and the offseason testing and tweaking its car to try to limit the G-forces delivered to drivers. The changes were welcomed, resulting in considerably fewer missed races and no reported concussions in 2023.
Busch, meanwhile, formally retired from NASCAR’s top tier of racing over the weekend. The 45-year-old held back tears as he called it quits, saying his “body is just having a battle with Father Time.”
Busch added he’s dealt with arthritis and gout while trying to shake lingering effects of the brain injury that rocked stock car racing a year ago.
Preece’s accident harkened memories of Ryan Newman’s harrowing wreck in the 2020 Daytona 500. Newman was able to walk out of the hospital days later, another testament to NASCAR safety improvements made since Dale Earnhardt’s death on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500.
