Ryan Newman's injuries from Daytona 500 crash are not life threatening | Golic and Wingo

just a horrible mess that left everyone breathless with Ryan Newman. Have you not updated at this time on Ryan's status and where his health is? Well, I mean, last night was the best update possible, what's the scenario we have? Everything we feared was not what it was and that's why we heard that just a second ago from Steve O'Donnell, the vice president asked Armistead about non-

life

-

threatening

injuries

. In fact, I just chatted. I'm here at Halifax Health, at the hospital right across the street. dates International Speedway and I chatted with some of the Roush Fenway Racing executives just a few seconds ago when they got here to the hospital and I don't think there will be any updates today, now it's just wait and see until we see them.

I know exactly what they're dealing with, but the good news is that Ryan Newman is still with us and if I'm 100% honest, I've come, it's my 25th Daytona 500 and if I'm honest with you. Guys, last night I thought I was going to give you some really bad news and that wasn't the case, speaking with Ryan McGee with us and Ryan, when was the point where it got there for you? Because we are used to seeing accidents in NASCAR. We are used to it. That's part of the normal course of action in some cases, but when did he seem to take this next step toward something where you thought the news might be serious?

Well you know it's interesting, Mike, because you're in victory lane and it's the worst place to watch the race and you can't see the track, but there's a section of the track where you can watch the cars go down the strut. front right after the start/finish line, but you're in some kind of Cage, you know you're in the turn area, turn in victory lane and there's a TV monitor, so when it happened live, you know Yes, it looked bad and I saw the car go by, but I'm doing it again. If I'm honest, you know if February 18, 2001, this day 19 years ago is when Dale Earnhardt died and no driver has died in a NASCAR national series race since that day and we've been a little spoiled, so that when the accident occurred. your first instance is hey who won the race because we've gotten used to everyone being able to leave, but then once I saw the replay what worried me was if you're a racing fan you know the only place. that you don't want to have a hard contact is right on the driver's side window and when it went flying and came back down on Cora Lovejoy through no fault of her own, it went through that window and that's the concern because if there is a weak spot in that race car and if there's a vulnerable spot on that race card, that's where it is and that's where the concern was, so I immediately thought you know serious head

injuries

, all those things that we used to deal with you.

I didn't know until Dell Earnhardt's death and that's where the concern was and listen, I'll say this to a lot of people who were being very critical of Denny Hamlin and Joe Gibbs Racing for celebrating their victory in the Daytona 500, but the reality It's just that they had no idea what was going on and I can tell you first hand that Joe Gibbs was standing right next to me in victory lane and refused to cross the rope to go to where the celebration was going to take place until that had an update. about Ryan Newman and he never crossed that rope, so the team didn't know it was chaos after the race and once everyone got a sense of the severity of the situation, victory lane closed, I mean, in a matter of minutes, and then people trying to fill this two-hour gap where there wasn't much information and in the Twitterverse era they fill it with anger and I tell anyone who is angry at Joe Gibbs Racing and Denny Hamlin they don't know what to talk, well that's where Twitter said it's worst, there's no doubt about it and it was your you know, interview and report that we all have to say, well, because listen, we're casual racing fans, the three of us will sit here and Honestly, we don't know how it all works and your explanation really helped open our eyes to that, in that sense, what the races are like now, the overtimes they have and how aggressive they are in the first overtime, so I'm a Immediately two cars were going into the field and they had to stop it and then they started the second one, then we see this horrible accident.

Was it someone's fault? Blaney was one behind him. Was someone at fault? If anyone because of this accident no. and you know what's also interesting and thank you for the type of work, which is instant for Mike, you know it's all the crises that lead to the big crisis at the end and you know when you're covering a race you stop. because of the frame care center, you know that if you're in an accident and you have to go, you have to go see the doctor and I was talking to Brad Keselowski about one of the previous accidents right before the big one and I said, Brad, come on, we're all analyzing this accident and it was an accident caused by his teammate Joey Logano and we're all analyzing this film and I told Brad I'd never asked a racing driver until last night.

Is it any use to go back and analyze whose fault it was? Because everyone agrees that Daytona is Daytona and it's just a different animal and the rules here are different than anywhere else and it's the biggest race of the year, all that and Braga is it. It absolutely helps to see what maybe you could have done differently, but at the end of the day it's just roulette and they kept me and Jimmie Johnson using that word roulette, so I think everyone will watch the movie and do it. I tried to figure out what happened, but the nature of these races, the nature of these cars, the nature of the Daytona 500, the nature of it being the last laps at the end of the day, it was tried to say, but it's a deal. careers. is that we're talking to Ryan McGee and Marting McGee at the Shell Pennzoil performance line, don't forget to see Marty and McGee on Saturdays from 7-9am. m.

ET on ESPN radio and the SEC Network. I'm going to ask you to bend over backwards here and turn the page to one thing before we let you go, obviously, Denny Hamlin just did something historic, he just did something incredible, leave a little perspective aside from the accident to take a moment. and put a little perspective on what Denny Hamlin just accomplished Denny. Hamlin has won three Daytona 500s and five years Richard Petty wants us to, he became the fourth driver since this track opened in 1959 to win back-to-back Daytona 500s and two of the other three are in the Hall of Fame. and you could argue that I have respect for Sterling Marlin and I talked to Denny Hamlin about it in victory lane and he looked at me and said oh and oh by the way, it was one of the closest finishes in NASCAR history and I asked him about.

He said, listen, I can't stomach it right now and part of it was because of Ryan Newman and part of it was because he just looked at me because my name doesn't deserve to be next to those other names, but yeah, and you know there's always this debate about who it is. the greatest racing driver to never win a championship and right now I think the answer is Denny Hamlin, he's the last thing on the resume, but yeah, if you win three Daytona 500s, you'll skate into the NASCAR Hall of Fame. When you're done, thanks for watching ESPN on YouTube for more sports highlights and analysis, be sure to download the ESPN app, and to stream live sports and premium content, subscribe to ESPN Plus.