Less than a minute after the green flag waved at Saturday night’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race in Kansas, Carson Kvapil found himself upside down. On the second lap, Kvapil’s car flipped on the backstretch following contact with his JR Motorsports teammate William Byron. Positioned between Byron on the inside and another teammate, Justin Allgaier, on the outside, Kvapil’s car smashed head-on into the outside wall after the collision.
As Kvapil’s car struck the wall, Parker Retzlaff made contact, causing Kvapil’s vehicle to tumble. Thankfully, safety crews managed to flip the car back onto its wheels, and Kvapil was able to exit unassisted.
“I didn’t expect it to flip like that, so it wasn’t a fun moment,” Kvapil told the CW after being checked and released from the infield care center.
While such flips are more typical at superspeedways like Daytona or Talladega, recent years have seen cars briefly leave the ground at Kansas as well. For example, last year Zane Smith’s vehicle rode the wall on its side during the Cup Series race, and Erik Jones flipped on the backstretch in the 2017 Cup event at Kansas.
Kvapil, 22, is the son of former NASCAR Truck Series champion Travis Kvapil. Now in his second full season in NASCAR’s No. 2 series, he finished fourth in the standings last year and was among the final four contenders competing for the championship in the last year of NASCAR’s winner-take-all playoff format.
Fan Take: This dramatic crash underscores just how unpredictable and intense racing at Kansas can be, even though it’s not a superspeedway. For fans, it highlights the close competition and inherent risks drivers face, which keeps the sport thrilling and unpredictable.
Source: sports.yahoo.com
