Zane Smith walked away with only his feelings hurt at Kansas Speedway after riding along the outside wall for several hundred feet on his No. 38 Ford’s driver side.
Smith was bumped into the SAFER barrier by John Hunter Nemechek on a Lap 267 restart, and his car lost little momentum around the 1.5-mile oval despite having none of its tires on the asphalt as its left side scraped all the way through Turn 4.
After finally decelerating off the corner, the car barrel-rolled down the banking and then landed with a heavy thud on its left-side tires (which were mostly destroyed). After being tended to by track workers, Smith was able to exit under his own power while the race was stopped for nearly 9 minutes under a red flag to clear the wreckage.
The Front Row Motorsports driver finished 31st after the crash, which also collected Ty Gibbs and Josh Berry.
“It was a wild ride, no doubt,” Smith told NBC Sports’ Dave Burns outside the track’s care center after being checked and released. “Before I knew it, I had a decent restart going, and I just get wrecked by (Nemechek). 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 Ford today. It’s just a bummer. Right before that caution came out, we were going to 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. Five more (races), hopefully we bring some more good ones.”
In his first season at Front Row, Smith is ranked 27th in the points standings. The 26-year-old finished third at Bristol Motor Speedway two weeks ago.
