‘Big miracles and little miracles’ put Ryan Newman back in a NASCAR for Sunday’s race
Ryan Newman sat in front of a serene-looking outdoor scene sipping from a bottle of Coca-Cola and joking about his ability to use technology before a highly anticipated Zoom call with reporters on Thursday afternoon.
“I was just thinking about this backdrop I’ve got here,” Newman said. “I can’t tell if it’s the sunrise or the sunset.”
It was Newman’s first appearance in front of NASCAR media members since the No. 6 driver was involved in a last-lap crash at the Daytona 500 in February. It was a wreck so violent that, three months earlier, many of the reporters now on the call had questioned whether Newman would survive and compared the scene to one they had witnessed nearly two decades ago when the same superspeedway claimed the life of former Cup Series driver Dale Earnhardt.
“(It) was multiple miracles,” Newman said. “Big miracles and little miracles in my opinion that aligned for me to be able to walk out days later with my hands around my daughters and to be thankful.”
The 42-year-old is now ready to return to the sport without injuries — he was medically cleared by NASCAR two weeks ago — and without missing more than three Cup Series races, due to the coronavirus pandemic that halted the NASCAR season and sports in general for the last two months. Newman is entered Sunday at Darlington Raceway, his favorite track, as the 2020 Cup season returns.
“It doesn’t get enough credit,” Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin said.
“We all need to realize that Newman’s crash was the best, right?” Hamlin continued. “No long‑term injuries or anything like that. Bumps and bruises here and there, but essentially everything did its job.”
Newman said he doesn’t remember the exact moment of the crash, when he spun out coming down the final stretch, hit the wall, flipped on the track and was hit on the driver’s side by Corey LaJoie, causing his car to go airborne before skidding to a flaming halt in the infield. Newman said he was knocked unconscious. He was immediately transported to a nearby hospital, where he said he was put in “somewhat of a medically induced coma.”
“That medicine kind of zoned me out,” Newman said. “So I really don’t have any memories or recollection of any of my crash until I actually had my arms around my daughters walking out of the hospital.”
Newman added that there were many factors that allowed him to walk out of the hospital days later. He said his carbon fiber helmet, the car’s various safety enhancements that NASCAR has developed over the years, including a “Newman Bar” across the front of the roll cage, a feature NASCAR implemented after a crash between Newman and Kurt Busch in 2012, as well as the efficiency of the medical personnel at the track contributed to his good fortune.
“It’s not just the Newman Bar or the Petty Bar or the Earnhardt Bar,” Newman said. “It’s the net effort of everybody in auto racing that contributed up until that day.”
NASCAR said officials at its Research and Development Center are continuing to investigate the crash and will roll out safety enhancements in the coming weeks as the season resumes with more superspeedway races on the schedule, the first of which will take place at Talladega Superspeedway on June 21. Newman said that although he suffered from what he continues to call a “bruised brain” after the crash, he has felt “completely normal since” and that he is ready to return on Sunday.
“I’m hoping to do every lap and one more after that,” Newman said. “I think they call it the victory lap.”
Looking at him Thursday, that seems insanely possible.
This story was originally published May 15, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
