Austin Dillon: 'We can prevent these accidents. We need to.'
Austin Dillon dutifully thanked NASCAR for safety innovations of the last 15 years that prevented serious injury in his spectacular checkered-flag crash in the Coke Zero 400 on Monday at Daytona International Speedway. But he hopes that series will use the incident as a starting point in preventing this type of restrictor-plate crash from escalating further.
Dillon's No. 3 Chevrolet shed its engine and was shredded almost down to the roll cage at the finish when it was sent airborne and into a catchfence. Crews from three different teams ran to his aid when his car finally came to rest near the apron, after being tagged by a spinning Brad Keselowski. The crew members decompressed a terrorizing half minute when they all manically signaled that the 25-year-old appeared to be uninjured. Moments later, Dillon was out of the car and giving the crowd a wave.
"We can do some things to prevent these accidents for sure. I think we need to and we can," Dillon said in a national teleconference Tuesday.
Dillon and several of his peers have suggested reducing speeds as a way of potentially mitigating their 3,250-pound cars from going aloft after contact in massive packs. NASCAR is currently conducting an autopsy on what is left of Dillon's car at its Research and Development Center. Plate racing in general and the 2.5-mile track at Daytona in particular, Dillon said, engendered the wreck Monday morning. Spectacular crashes are typical at Daytona and Talladega, where restrictor plates are used to inhibit air intake and horsepower and clump cars in 200-plus-mph caravans.
"The way the racing is set up now, it breeds these kind of wrecks," he said. "It's three‑wide pack racing, and at Daytona it's tighter than Talladega. There's less room. I think if you're at Talladega, this wreck might not happen because it's a little bit wider. But it's just a part of the racing that we're in right now.
"I think we can do things to help slow down some of the wrecks and might keep us from catching air, but we'll just have to see the direction that NASCAR goes, and maybe they'll ask the drivers their opinions, and we can give them a good opinion to kind of go together to make the racing still stay the same."
Dillon, a rodeo fan, had the mentality to flash a wave reminiscent of late professional bull rider Lane Frost to the crowd before being taken to the infield care center.
The former Xfinity Series champion had come through the wreck and an impact from Brad Keselowski's No. 2 Ford physically uninjured and mentally recalibrating when the reactions of his family suggested the devastation he had escaped. Dillon's grandfather, Richard Childress, is his team owner, while father, Mike, is a team executive and brother, Ty, a driver in the Xfinity Series.
"After the race and I had already gotten into the infield care center, I was pretty much fine," Austin Dillon. "I wasn't shaken. I was just kind of telling my parents, 'I am OK, I am OK,' and talking to them. And you could see how upset they were, and I hadn't seen the real footage of the wreck. I knew it was bad. But didn't know how bad.
"When I talked to my brother, it was another level and he was upset and hearing him on the phone, it was like, 'Man, I'm going to have to watch this,' because he's a tough guy and to hear him be upset about it and worried about me, it was like 'all right I need to look at this wreck.'
"I did, and you can see where a guy watching it from home, not knowing how I was, and the pit crew kind of running out to the car, it was pretty dramatic right there for 30 seconds, 28 seconds or so."
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PHOTOS: Dillon's terrifying crash in the Coke Zero 400
