Its insanely dangerous. Really just neigh-criminally stupid.
Any little lip in the siding on the wall could have caused him to flip or twirl about or get speared or launched his engine all over the place. The walls are designed to keep people safe, including the fans. They are fantastically well engineered and made. But, if he had caught the wall wrong and was catapulted into the stands, he may have killed a lot of people, let alone the danger to other drivers, let alone to himself. The various safety systems, of which the wall was but one, aren't made for that move and could very easily have been compromised in very bad ways.
I mean, it was awesome to watch, just incredibly cool. I'm glad it worked for him, he's in the history books for that move for sure. I can totally see NASCAR evolving to utilize that move in the future.
But he put many lives at more risk than anyone was expecting in such a kinetic sport.
I think just this year the body design on the cars became strong enough to try this. He also risked a yellow flag being thrown which would have disqualified any passing afterward. But they weren't quick enough with that lol.
The obvious one is that it ruins the car, at the end of the video you see his car is stopped on the track, presumably he broke some control arms and can't drive it back to the pits.
So it works once, then you're out, and you have to hope you pull it off safely. It was a massive risk, not all courses have a wall that wouldn't have wrecked the car. He mentions that part in the video.
That is pretty crazy. I can't imagine he kept his wheel alignment which would have been impactful if he had to keep racing, but it's impressive the suspension arms survived that. Maybe the new gen cage contacts before the wheels and they took most of the force?
I wonder if they modified the car for this at all? I've gotta imagine that he at least discussed the possibility of doing this with his crew before he went and did it.
The 2022 “NextGen” cars are significantly stiffer than prior cars; it’s possible that they are stiff enough to be better able to run the full half lap without getting stuck, but I more suspect no one seriously considered it.
Even with Nextgen cars, it’s a last half-lap move at most.
I also suspect nobody seriously considered it or thought they could get away with it. If they don't add rules to stop it, you will see people welding bumpers or even wheels to the sides of their cars to take advantage.
Getting into the wall usually means a flat tire or at least being slowed down considerably. I don’t think you could do this on a superspeedway track because the forces and friction would just destroy the car before the turn was over. On a short track it looks to be a different story.
