Texas Motor Speedway's Eddie Gossage On Ryan Newman Crash At Daytona 500

Betty just expresses your thoughts when you watch the last lap of the Daytona 500 finish line and see the

crash

involving Ryan Newman which is awesome. I mean it really is a scary time and you hope and pray that Ryan is okay. former winner here at Texas Motor Speedway and I'm telling you he's one of the toughest guys I've ever met, but you know it was such an ugly accident at the end, you know the people who aren't in our sport when we say well, that was a racing deal i think we're not blowing it at all but you know at the end of the Daytona 500 those drivers have a gentlemen's agreement one race there's an agreement between them that it's every man for himself and you know obviously nobody wants to hurt anybody and nobody wants to see somebody get hurt but you know it's 200 miles an hour it's an inherently dangerous sport what do you think of the steps that NASCAR has taken in terms of safety measures and are you satisfied when we see something like this?

Not that that had anything to do with the accident, but are you satisfied with the steps that have been taken? You have to be pleased with the steps NASCAR is taking back to 19. Did we lose Dale Earnhardt Sr. in an accident years ago? We went through a period of time there in a two year period where we lost two or three poor drivers and changes were made to the build of the car. Changes were made. to the energy absorbing materials used in the car and we also spend millions and millions of dollars putting up safer barriers at every race track that NASCAR runs on and we've gone a long time without really serious injuries and like I said it's inherently dangerous sport you're constantly redoing things trying to make the sport as safe as possible it's not always going to be safe when you're dealing with those kinds of speeds but you keep learning every day and trying to make things better and I think NASCAR deserves Lots of credit because it's a lot safer than it was 19 years ago when we had that horrible accident at Daytona.

I asked you before, Etienne, the first thing I hear when we're watching reruns is people old enough to remember. including myself, they listened to Dale Earnhardt and they went back to 2001 at the Daytona 500 on the last lap, but you can explain that there are very different circumstances, yes those are two completely different types of accidents, the Dale Earnhardt

crash

and the The turnaround for the fatality occurred because his seatbelt broke, it had frayed against the seat frame which had been in excessive use for who knows how long and it was just an oversight by him and his team and just a terrible price to pay for this night with

ryan

newman

is terrible in an accident much worse than dale earnhardt they learned it hurts every time i see that accident i get mad because we have seen it over and over again and people are perfectly fine but this is like with Ryan was particularly ugly.

Another car where everyone is racing around and they bounce off each other a bit. Next thing you know he's airborne upside down, he bounces off the wall and into traffic and gets hit on the driver's side while he's upside down. different set of circumstances we just have to hope

ryan

is okay he has told us ryan

newman

won at

texas

motor

speedway

sooner than what sets him apart from other drivers as a person ryan is a very interesting guy he has an engineering degree i think that he's from Purdue, but he's from the Midwest. He is quite amazing.

He's the hardest guy to pass on the track. It doesn't matter if you're racing for the lead or if you're racing with him and he's two laps back. sure you have to try really hard to dodge him you better be quick or he won't stop and let you go and you know everyone knows that about ryan from a personal point of view he has two daughters he is uh he has an animal and I don't know to call it a shelter or but it's a huge animal operation that he owns and I know it's not just cats and dogs I mean we're talking all kinds of animals he's just a huge animal lover so a nice guy i snuck up behind him once and put my arms around him and it was like hugging a rock i mean he is stocky and strong and you know that will certainly help him fight any injuries he may have sustained in this crash is a tough guy but he's in great physical condition his overall thoughts on this year's 500 if rain pushes him into monday and then the second closest finish ever and this race and then the crash at the finish was good a Weird Daytona 500 because it lasted two days, you know it's typical of Daytona in that it had one or two big crashes, which is the nature of the type of racing you have at Daytona and Talladega, two tracks that have different rules.

Because the track is so big, they use a different engine aerodynamically, it's completely different than any other race, their courses, so you can do well at Daytona. He might have a horrible rest of the season, you know that happens, but you know it's just a different kind of race, and of course with the grand prix at the end, everyone, you just know, the team owner will tell you that he just return the flyer when done, but go get it and they all go. because of that and unfortunately you end up with accidents like tonight's right at the end