Two of the most violent incidents at the Coke Zero Sugar 400 on Saturday night took place between Michael McDowell and Josh Berry.
McDowell’s car passed first with nine laps to go at Daytona International Speedway. The polesitter was leading the field on the outside lane in Turn 1 when he was touched by Ford teammate Austin Cindric and sent to the left. McDowell’s car was perpendicular to the field when it was driven into the driver’s door by Joey Logano and lifted off the ground.
Fortunately, the car did not roll over and came back up on all four wheels. McDowell was examined and released from the Infield Care Center and said he was OK. The incident, McDowell said, was a “wrong angle at the wrong time,” but he didn’t want to blame anyone.
McDowell led for 26 laps and was classified 30th.
“It went over,” McDowell said. “I had my eyes closed, but whoever hit me felt like they knocked me back down because there was this moment where it got really bright and really quiet and then I got hit and was back down on the ground. I didn’t see the replay, but I’m just glad Josh Berry is OK. That definitely looked worse than mine.
“It’s the end of a Daytona race and things like this happen. Everyone gives it their all and we had guys up there who needed to win, so you know everyone is going to give it their all.”
Once McDowell was free to give interviews, he saw the final accident of the evening involving Berry occur. The field was two by two on the backstretch when a collision occurred between Kyle Busch and Cindric with two laps to go. Cindric, driving in the inside lane, collided with the driver’s side of Berry’s car, who was driving in the outside lane.
Berry spun left onto the ramp, his car lifted off the ground and flipped over on its roof. On the roof, the car slid to the inside wall and hit the front of the car. The impact caused Berry, still upside down, to spin several times before finally coming to a stop. NASCAR safety personnel turned the car over again and Berry immediately climbed out.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” said the Stewart-Haas Racing driver. “It actually wasn’t as bad as it looked. But, man, I’m disappointed because we had a hell of a night. Rodney and the whole team of four just did a great job; the car was so strong and we were in position.”
“I’m really proud of the job I did tonight and really proud of the job the whole team did because we were in the race. That could have been our day. But it didn’t work out. I just want to thank everybody at Stewart-Haas Racing and Ford and NASCAR for building safe race cars; Eero for coming on board tonight. It’s disappointing, but whether we would have won or gone crazy, we’re going to go to work on Monday and try to win next week.”
Berry led nine laps but finished 26th. Although he rolled over, Berry pointed out that NASCAR’s decision to remove the grass on the backstretch after Ryan Preece’s accident in the same race last year prevented him from rolling over.
“As bad as it looked, they’ve improved a lot from Ryan’s last year,” Berry said. “I just can’t believe we flipped two of our Stewart-Haas cars in a row like that.”
