Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Newman lives to talk about spectacular crash

Monday, Feb. 17, 2003 | 10:17 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at bh@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4089.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Ryan Newman went on an E-ticket ride Sunday afternoon at Daytona International Speedway and lived to tell about it.

Newman escaped injury in a violent crash that left his No. 12 Penske Racing Dodge demolished 58 laps into the 45th annual Daytona 500.

"Disney World doesn't have one of those (rides), I can tell you that," Newman said after the wreck in which his car flipped several times in the infield grass.

The accident was triggered after Ward Burton got into the rear of Ken Schrader's car coming out of Turn 4. Schrader hit the outside wall, came down the track and clipped the right rear of Newman's car.

Newman's car made contact with the outside wall before sliding across the track toward the infield grass and then getting airborne. Once his car hit the grass, it flipped four times before coming to rest on its roof.

After track rescue workers came to his aid, Newman was able to climb out of the car through the side window. He was checked and released from the infield care center with no injuries.

"I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and got up into the wall," Newman said. "It was a pretty hard hit and when I saw the grass, I figured I was in more trouble than hitting the wall.

"I was aware of what position I was in but there comes a time when you lose control and than I was along for the ride. I was pretty much aware of everything that was going on but you can only do what you can do in a situation like that and we were just hanging on."

Newman's was one of five incidents that brought out caution flags in the rain-shortened race; none of the drivers involved were injured.

"(Busch) came in there, hot as usual," Harvick said. "I don't know what happened but he was sitting in my pit and I was sitting on pit road, stopped. That's about the third time (he has done that).

"Then he about ran over our jack guy running through our pit stall and ran over our jack. They just need to put a restrictor plate on his foot because obviously his foot doesn't register with his brain."

Busch, who also collided with Harvick in the pits during the second 125-mile qualifying race last Thursday, said the chaos on pit road led him to overshoot his pit stall on that stop.

"We've got three cars running three positions apart (pitting) right there next to each other," Busch said. "The 01 pulls in and I've got to come around the 01. Then the 29 has to come around him so we've got three cars and we're going 55 to 0 (mph) in a space where you can't park anything.

"We're all trying to do two tires or fuel only or four tires and it's the most congested pit area with those three cars pulling in that way. I'm in the middle so I'm making guys mad behind me and in front of me so what am I supposed to do?"

"They don't stop the Super Bowl, they don't stop the World Series (because of rain)," Jarrett said. "This is our biggest race of the year. Maybe we need to look at running all 500 miles. Whether it takes a day or two days, we need to run all 500 miles."

Sunday's race was the shortest Daytona 500 in history and only the third time the event has not run the full 500 miles. The 1966 race was called by rain after 198 laps and the 1965 event was called after 133 laps.

Burton, who was able to continue after the incident involving Jimmie Johnson, cut a tire on lap 106, spun out and made contact with the wall in Turn 4 to bring out the final caution period of the race.

"It's disappointing when you fall out of any race, it doesn't matter if you're the defending champion or not," said Burton, who finished in 38th place.

"I can't get home tonight because ice is all over the runways in North Carolina and Virginia. I couldn't go home last year because we won the race; that was a much better reason to stay here another night."