Kansas Sends Zane Smith on a Roller Coaster Ride Without a Safety Bar

Zane Smith went on a roller coaster ride at Kansas Speedway Sunday, and he didn’t even have to stand in line.

It’s rare enough for a car to flip on a mile-and-a-half track. It’s even rarer to see one skate along the wall on its side like a kid tipping a skateboard too far. On Sunday, Smith managed to do both—and somehow climbed out of it.

The drama came on the race’s first attempt at an overtime finish. Smith, who had been having a solid afternoon, was running the high lane entering Turn 3. He was side-by-side with his Front Row Motorsports teammate Todd Gilliland when John Hunter Nemechek decided to insert himself into the frame. Nemechek caught Smith’s left-rear quarter panel and sent the No. 38 Ford skating into the SAFER barrier.

That was bad enough. But Nemechek kept sliding, squeezing Smith even tighter against the wall. The impact tipped Smith’s Ford onto its driver’s side, where it slid for several yards. Then physics took over. The car flipped onto its roof, tumbled twice, and finally landed back on its wheels like a battered carnival ride.

Behind them, the wreck spiraled. After his final contact with Smith, Nemechek’s Toyota came down the banking and clipped Ty Gibbs. That spun Gibbs into Josh Berry, turning the whole sequence into a scrapyard in motion. Gibbs kept going, but both Nemechek and Berry were done for the day.

The mayhem triggered a red flag at Lap 268—already one lap beyond the scheduled distance. Crews and officials sprinted to the scene as the field parked on the backstretch.

Fortunately, Smith kept his hands and arms inside the ride at all times. He climbed out under his own power, visibly frustrated but otherwise intact, and was quickly checked and released from the infield care center.

“It was a wild ride, no doubt,” Smith said after. “Before I knew it, I had a decent restart going and I just get wrecked by the 42. He just drives 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.

“It was violent, no doubt, but we had such a fast Speedy Cash Ford today. It’s just a bummer. Right before that caution came out we were gonna have a top 10 day, racing up inside the top 10 a majority of the day and it’s a shame that it has to come to an end out there. I want to give a shout out back to everyone at FRM for bringing another really good car, especially at a mile-and-a-half. Hopefully, five more. Hopefully we bring some more good ones.”

In the end, Smith’s day ended upside down and backward, but the most important part was that he walked away. And at Kansas, on a day when the finish was wild enough on its own, that was its own kind of victory.

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Greg Engle

Editor in Chief at Cup Scene Daily

Greg is a published award winning sportswriter who spent 23 years combined active and active reserve military service, much of that in and around the Special Operations community.

Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.