“My car is absolutely destroyed”: Kyle Larson ‘thankful’ to be okay after huge impact crash at Talladega

Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Larson was lucky to survive without injury after a hard crash on the first overtime restart of Sunday’s GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.

His #5 Chevrolet car suffered a serious right-side impact when Ross Chastain challenged Ryan Blaney for the lead. Noah Gragson, who was running beside Chastain, lost control, which started an accident that involved several drivers, including Larson.

The 2021 Cup Series champion initially spun to the left, onto the apron. But as he tried to regain control of his #5 car, he spun to the right and back up the track. Ryan Preece then slammed into the right-side door of the car.

The high-speed collision caused significant damage to the side of the #5 car. A door bar inside the cockpit was seen being pushed and twisted after the impact.

Speaking to the media, Kyle Larson said that he is thankful to be unscathed after surviving the life-threatening wreck. He also rued the result after being in a good position in a superspeedway.

Larson said:

"Thankfully, I'm okay. My car is absolutely destroyed. The cockpit is a mess. Just thankful that I'm alright and all that, but just a bummer. We put ourselves in position once again on a superspeedway, and the end results don't show it. Another wreck not of my doing on a superspeedway. Just hate it, but we'll keep getting better and eventually, it'll have to work out."

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“That was P1 for (hardest hits) I’ve ever taken in my life” – Ryan Preece spoke about his hard contact with Kyle Larson

Speaking to the media after exiting the care center, #41 driver Ryan Preece admitted that it was the hardest hit he had ever taken in his career. He spoke about his dangerous contact with Kyle Larson and said:

“That was P1 for (hardest hits) I’ve ever taken in my life. I feel like when I wreck, I’m pretty tough, and usually not a lot of stuff you think, ‘Man, that hurt.’ That kind of was somebody poking at me and saying, this is going to nudge you a little bit. Definitely P1 on the hit list for me.”

Kyle Larson and Ryan Preece were checked and released from the infield care center. NASCAR will be taking Larson’s destroyed car from the Talladega race to its R&D center for further inspection this week. The other cars taken by NASCAR to the R&D Center were Austin Cindric’s #2 Ford and Tyler Reddick’s #45 Toyota.