One race into the 2023 NASCAR season and Kyle Larson is once again raising eyebrows over safety issues.
Larson was very straightforward on what he had to say after the exhibition Clash at the Coliseum held earlier this month in Los Angeles.
Multiple Cup Series drivers also spoke out last season while the decision-makers (Nascar) listened.
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Former Cup champion Kurt Busch was forced to retire due to lingering symptoms from a head concussion sustained during a July 23 collision at Pocono Raceway.
Kyle Larson explained during an interview with Bob Pockrass how violent the hits felt at the clash, and has major concerns heading into the new season with the same issues.
“I think we all want them to be better and less stiff so the hits hurt less but I don’t really know what they can do at this point, it’s probably another year down the road that they can even you know make a change at the earliest so we’ll see”. Said Larson.
“It wasn’t fun you know every restart you’re just getting slammed with the back your head is just whiplashing into the back of the seat”.
NASCAR’s “Next Gen” car debuted in 2022, and major red flags were raised surrounding safety concerns.
Changes were made for the 2023 season by NASCAR which includes the removal of some bars, a reduction in the thickness of some tubing, and adding pivot points called “triggers” in the structure to encourage deformation while protecting both the oil tank and fuel cell.
“It’s not any one of those things by themselves that was the key,” explained Dr. John Patalak, NASCAR’s vice president of safety engineering.
“It was the cumulative effect of the whole assembly working together. And so this was kind of the final validation of that. All of those changes were put together through computer modeling all sorts of different crash scenarios at the race track.”
Alex Bowman the teammate of Kyle Latson won the pole Wednesday night for the Daytona 500 while Larson was second as they locked in those spots for the start of Sunday’s much-anticipated race.
“Last year they (NASCAR) tell you like when you’re backing into the wall the brace for it, well you can’t really brace for that stuff you know in the race because you get hit from behind your head gets sent forward and then you get you hit the car in front of you and your head gets sit like it your head just gets slammed around so it was violent I mean not only your head your whole body like your legs are your feet are flying.” Larson concluded.
These car sucks