Video: Ty Dillon survives the hardest he’s ever been ‘hit by anything’ at Indy

It could have been a lot worse. The first caution for an incident came late during the NASCAR Cup race at the Indy Road Course Sunday. It ended the day for two drivers, one of whom was already struggling.

On lap 62 of the scheduled 80, Ty Dillon was ahead of Kyle Larson heading into the fastest part of the infield road course, Turn 1, which had seen all sorts of chaos up to that point.

Larson was already three laps down after making contact with Aric Almirola on lap 24 and breaking a suspension part on his Chevy. The crew was forced to make repairs and send Larson back out, but he had no hope for the win.

As Dillon rounded the corner on lap 62, Larson’s Chevy slid sideways and leapt over the curbing, up and into Dillon. Both cars were heavily damaged, and Larson immediately got out of his and ran across the track to talk to Dillon, perhaps to apologize.

Dillon was later checked and released from the infield care center.

“All I saw was a blue flash and that’s about the hardest I’ve been hit by anything,” Dillon said. “First, I’m just grateful to God that I’m OK and these cars are safe enough to take a shot like that.

“We were having a good run with our No. 42 Ferris Camaro ZL1 and I was just blindsided, really. I’m all good. It’s been a tough year, but I’m never going to quit. We’re going to keep getting better. We’ve been running good, just things are happening. You’ll have days like that, you’ll have times like that. You just never give up and go onto the next one.”

Larson was also checked and cleared, but he declined to talk about the incident instead rushing to his crew to see just what had happened.

Greg Engle