Wrecks, contact, and elbows-out driving have long set NASCAR apart from other forms of motorsport, where such aggression rarely flies. Still, those moments carry a darker edge, with the sport never far withdrawn from the shade of Dale Earnhardt’s crash at Daytona in 2000. More recently, fate turned against Zane Smith this weekend at Kansas, who, until Sunday, had never flipped a stock car, until a shove from John Hunter Nemechek changed that.
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In a race marred by late cautions and two overtime restarts, Chase Elliott slipped past the Toyotas as they tangled with each other. But one of those cautions produced a brutal crash, sending Smith barrel-rolling twice before his car came to rest on all four wheels. The No. 38 Ford was battered, but Smith climbed out under his own power after the rough ride at the exit of Turn 4.
The incident began as Smith charged the high lane into Turn 3 alongside teammate Todd Gilliland. Nemechek closed quickly, caught Smith’s left-rear quarter panel, and sent the latter’s Ford sliding into the SAFER barrier. The impact forced Smith to ride the wall and eventually turned Smith’s car onto its side before it flipped twice across the banking.
After being checked and released at the infield care center, Smith didn’t sugarcoat it. “I mean, violent, no doubt,” he told reporters, pointing to the chaos of restarts.
“Just crazy restarts at Kansas and, man, I just got wrecked. They just drove right through my left rear, and so hard it kicked me up onto the wall, and then, yeah, just started flipping down the track.” He confirmed it was the first time he had ever flipped a stock car, saying, “No, never flipped a stock car.”
Speaking later to NBC Sports, Smith offered more. “It was a wild ride, no doubt. I had a decent restart going, and I just get wrecked by the 42. He just drove through me, and then I was sliding on the wall. I was just mad at that point from how our day was going, and this just pissed me off even more because that’s what really hurt was just flipping down the track.”
Before the wreck, the Front Row Motorsports driver was on pace for a strong finish. He had scored ninth in the opening stage and hovered between 10th and 15th most of the afternoon. A top-10 run looked promising until the crash left him credited with 31st. Meanwhile, track officials later confirmed that the roughness of the wreck left a gouge in the Kansas Speedway surface.
