“A Bit Sad”: NASCAR Driver Reacts to Daytona’s New Look After Ryan Preece’s Horrific Wreck in 2023

A big debate ignited in the NASCAR community after the violent flip Ryan Preece suffered during the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona last season. Preece’s racecar got launched into the air because of the grass in the infield, leading to many voices from the garage and the sport demanding that the grass be removed.

Of course, the demands were heard, and considerable action was taken to better the facility. Now at the cusp of the next season, the Daytona 500 in less than a month, and the Rolex 24 in the immediate future journalist Bob Pockrass posted an image of the backstretch at Daytona in which several things were highlighted.

“The area in yellow is what was paved prior to the Rolex for the backstretch chicane at Daytona. The green is the area that will be paved after the Daytona 500. Rumble strips also will be removed after the 500. Changes made after analyzing Preece flip,” Pockrass wrote.

However, this was something that didn’t sit well with  Xfinity driver Landon Cassill. Even though Cassill understood the reasons for the change, he couldn’t help but make a taunt at the new state of the facility.

“I get the safety aspect, blah blah blah, but the trend of racetracks going full Brazilian with their infield grass still makes me a bit sad,” Cassill wrote.

I get the safety aspect, blah blah blah, but the trend of racetracks going full Brazilian with their infield grass still makes me a bit sad https://t.co/g4dCgnGGkg

— landon cassill (@landoncassill) January 26, 2024

Former superstar teammates wanted NASCAR to make the grass gone from Daytona

In the aftermath of the horrific incident, Ryan Preece suffered, a few big names from NASCAR raised their voices against the grass in the infield. Two of those voices came from former teammates, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch.

The #11 driver insisted that when it comes to getting rid of the grass, he was “in that camp for sure.” Hamlin explained. Kyle Busch, too reasoned on similar lines, explaining how a car going that fast gets turned around backward when it touches the grass and lifts, “it’s a sheet of plywood.”

In fact, Busch had been on this agenda for a while as he demanded that grass be gone from all the racetracks in NASCAR.

Thankfully, after Preece’s incident, NASCAR decided to get rid of the infield grass at Daytona. Now it’ll be interesting to see if they apply the same practice to other racetracks, especially the ones where such high-speed, high-risk incidents are always at risk.