Ryan Blaney gives health update after hard crash into wall at Nashville
Ryan Blaney is ready to get “back after it” following his head-on collision into the inside non-SAFER barrier wall during this past Sunday’s Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway.
Blaney provided an update on his recovery during a Tuesday appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
“Not something I would personally like to do again, but luckily I was able to get checked out,” Blaney said. “… Looking forward to getting back after it this week. I’ve recovered pretty good, you know I thought we did a really good job interior wise of our car. We worked really hard on kind of making sure we do all we can to make sure we’re as secure as possible. We’ve made a bunch of changes honestly the last couple years, year-and-a-half to seat positions, belts, head foam, footboards all that stuff that really kind of came in to factor and making sure I was as good as I could be inside there.”
The accident occurred on the Lap 147 restart after Brad Keselowski got off to a slow start on the outside lane. Keselowski, P3 at the time and second in the outside lane, said he got “run over” on the restart, which stacked up the field behind him, causing Blaney to slam into the inside wall that was a non-SAFER barrier.
“The guys behind me had so much power that they ran me over,” Keselowski said of the restart. “I got a great launch, and there they go. I just got run over. Got hit so hard it literally knocked it out of gear. They were just that much faster. It’s frustrating, but we got work to do.”
Ryan Blaney calls out NASCAR over SAFER barrier issue
Blaney, who hit the wall nose first, called out NASCAR for not having a SAFER barrier on the wall which tore up his No. 12 Ford.
“I don’t really know what happened,” Blaney said. “Someone checked up on the restart, I guess, and I kind of checked up and got hit from behind. I didn’t know if they were wrecking, and just couldn’t get it straightened out when I got out of the grass. I thought I was going to come back around, and that I’d be OK. But it just never got back right, and I don’t know why there’s no safer barrier there.
“That’s pretty ridiculous, honestly — hardest hit I’ve ever had in my life, so happy to be all right. It sucks for the Pennzoil Ford Mustang. Stinks to go home early.”
Following the race, NASCAR issued a statement in response to Blaney’s comments.
“NASCAR safety engineers work closely with safety experts on the implementation of barriers around the track,” the statement read. “As we do following every race weekend, we will evaluate all available data and make any necessary improvements.”