Denny Hamlin compares Ryan Blaney's wreck at Daytona to Dale Earnhardt's 2001 crash

On Saturday, Denny Hamlin watched along with many in shock that Ryan Blaney was able to walk away unscathed from his hit at Daytona.

Blaney was hooked while leading the race coming to the end of Stage 2, and the way his car pounded the wall was reminiscent of Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s wreck from 2001. Thankfully, with the amount of safety adjustments NASCAR has made over the years, Blaney was able to give an interview on the wreck just minutes later.

After watching the wreck himself, Hamlin took to his Actions Detrimental podcast to compare it to Earnhardt’s, and waxed poetic about some of the adjustments NASCAR has made over the years.

“It’s hard to equate, you know, are the impacts the same, is one more than the other? Certainly the safety innovations that we’ve come up with,” said Hamlin. “The HANS being the number one thing. I mean, I don’t know if the HANS or the safer-barriers. I would say probably the HANS. But it’s close.

“You know, just the head-neck restraint in general has changed the game, and certainly made it more safer, as far as a fatal impact is concerned.”

Continuing, Hamlin relented that Blaney has taken some massive hits over the years, and the Next Gen car, which was previously panned for some safety issues, has certainly improved in that area in 2023.

“I mean, Blaney’s taken some massive hits in the wall, in the Next Gen. Lucky for us, we got to hear him talk in an interview afterwards. So it’s tough. These things are tough,” added Hamlin. “I mean, his car did deflect more, certainly with the changes that NASCAR has made from the front clip, to make them compress more. That certainly, probably helped his impact over what the first iteration of Next Gen was.

“So it’s getting better. But that’s one of those worst-case scenario type things, where you’re driving in a corner and you get sent the other way. It’s a bad one.”

It definitely wasn’t an aesthetically pleasing wreck involving Blaney, and it’s fantastic that he’s all good following the incident. He may be annoyed he went from leading the race to out of it, without any of his own doing, but at least he didn’t suffer any damage to himself.

Denny Hamlin makes some salient points, and we’re just happy NASCAR has made the necessary adjustments to where now we have these wrecks and the drivers live to race another day.