McDowell Hits Sprint Cup Hard and Fast

With many of us out here to share our opinions we have all made comments similar to the following about drivers we think may be pushing the limits.

"He has never had a big crash." "He has not hit anything hard enough yet."

All of us, fans, competitors, owners, and sponsors can never say this about Micheal McDowell.

This saying is often used when more experienced drivers see these young drivers come in and do things on the track that may be considered crazy or wild. Kyle Busch often gets this reaction because he drives a little rough at times. He has hit pretty hard a few times. I am not sure Kyle could be as effective any other way. This is the style that allows him to tell the crew what his car is doing. If he backs it down a notch or two he may not be as effective.

Micheal McDowell is new to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series but this past weekend at Texas he jumped on the radar of many people inside and outside the NASCAR community. Heck I even saw him on the TV show, Inside Edition, doing an interview about his horrible crash. In case that comment did not make sense, Inside Edition usually does not do too many interviews with race car drivers.

If you have not seen the crash you need to look it up on the internet and watch it. All of the search engines have it plus I have posted it on www.JasonJarrett.com.

He was performing his qualifying lap when the car got loose going into turn one. When he tried to correct it the car shot right and smashed into the outside wall head on. This sent the car into a series of flips until finally coming to rest at the bottom of the track at the beginning of the back stretch. He has said that he never lost consciousness and remembers every flip until the car came to a stop. Michael walked away with some bruising and raced in the 500 mile event on Sunday afternoon.

From a safety point of view McDowell and his amazing crash has tested and passed all of the safety devices in one wreck. He tested the HANS device, the SAFER barriers, the full containment seat (LaJoie), and yes, the COT.

So, all of you that I listen to calling in on Sirius NASCAR radio can forget about the old style cars ever coming back. I am not saying that this one crash will make that decision but I am saying that for all of the complaining that NASCAR has had to endure they deserve a lot of credit for putting a safe race car on the track. They did their testing and they knew they had to make it safer to be able to bring us this great sport for many years to come. Even if it meant they were going to have to listen to some backlash at first.

The team, the car, the safety devices, and NASCAR did a great job to allow Michael McDowell to continue his quest to make it to the top. He can now move on and one of the best things is he will never have anyone say that he has not hit anything hard yet.