Kyle Larson said he saw the in-car video of his Talladega crash for the first time Friday and joked it made him feel like “I’m really tougher.”
Larson was involved in a multi-car crash on the last lap of last weekend’s race at Talladega. He was hit on the right side by William Byron’s car. That sent Larson’s car sliding toward the inside SAFER barrier on the backstretch. The right rear tire of Larson’s car began to lift off the pavement as he approached the wall.
“I was not expecting it to do that at all,” Larson said Friday at Dover International Speedway.
“It’s pretty crazy how much everything stretches,” Larson said of his crash. “My seat belts, my harness, everything stretch with an impact like that. So, I stretched far enough that my head hit the steering wheel a little bit. And with each tumble, just the jolts that my body went through was pretty crazy to see. And then you slow it down and look at how the chassis is flexing when it makes contact with the pavement, it’s pretty incredible. We’re driving heavy vehicles. So, for it to hold up as well as it did was pretty amazing.
“I’m just thankful that the chassis and all my safety equipment held up good.”
Larson was uninjured in the accident.
NASCAR has stated that it would analyze the crash to determine why the car got airborne.
“I’ve got a lot of confidence in NASCAR,” Larson said. “I’ve been involved in some big crashes. It seems like with any crash I’ve been in or that other drivers have been in, they’ve made improvements from them and made the cars safer and all that. So yeah, they have a lot of smart people in the safety area of their business. I’m confident that they’ll look at it and make improvements from it.”