Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2012 4:39 pm Post subject: Juan Montoya CRASH triggers an explosion at Daytona 500
I know this is a week old but it had to be one of the craziest things I have ever saw in racing.
Something on the car failed and he lost control hitting the jet dryer carrying 200 gallons of jet fuel. Luckily no one was injured.
One thing that surprised me the most was the drivers of the trucks did not wear any protective gear like a firesuit or a helmet. With all the safety precautions that are taken into racing events these days you would have thought there would have been some requirement for protection. Only since has NASCAR implemented these requirements.
this whole thing kinda made me chuckle a little...nascar is considered the biggest "redneck" sport...whats more redneck than strapping a jet engine to the back of a truck to dry the track...its amazing
and then the guy that crashed into the truck...im not sure of the exact mechanical problem that went wrong, but it was crazy to see a car flying around the track, with no others cars in sight, and then just lose control and crash into the truck
A broken trailing arm on the rear suspension of Juan Pablo Montoya's Earnhardt Ganassi Racing Chevrolet Impala was the cause for his fiery collision with a NASCAR jet blower during Monday's Daytona 500.
EGR officials confirmed to AUTOSPORT that one of the pieces connecting the rear axle to the chassis broke and caused Montoya's car to spin out of control while the Colombian drove along the backstretch under caution. This caused him to make contact with the track-drying truck
Watched the race and I gotta say it had to be one of the weirdest things I have ever seen happen. I liked Montoya's comment after the race...
"I have hit a lot of things in my racing career but never a jet dryer."
Makes you wonder what else he might have hit
As for the redneck aspect. I was at a Jeff Foxworthy show a few months back and one of his jokes was...
You can always tell you are at a Nascar race when you can see 100,000 people but only 200,000 teeth!
This doesn't have to to with Montoya's crash as it was made before his crash but, I thought it was interesting to learn why NASCAR has implemented some of the safety precautions they use today. Plus it has the crashes that caused the need for the change to the sport.
Very interesting stuff rogbow, thanks for posting.
Watching some of the early early Nascar racing just blows me away; the one scene where the two cars collide and fly right over the guard rail, WOW.
I can still remember the Dale Sr. crash and not thinking much of it until a few hours later when Mike Helton came out and said he had died. I, like everyone else who follows the sport, was in total shock.
The safer barriers, Hans devices and moving the driver closer to the center of the car have all been major safety improvements that have saved many a life.
Your Welcome M.O.P. Yeah that crash of Lee Petty and Johnny Bouchamp shooting through the guardrail is just amazing it ended their careers but they survived. I like the part where it shows Dale Sr. crash and shows his other crashes far worse than the one that took his life still hard to believe it still to this day blows my mind how what looked like nothing compared his others took his life.