Kyffin Simpson crashes, nearly flips No. 8 car during Fast Friday practice run

Shortly into the Indy 500 practice run on Fast Friday, INDYCAR driver Kyffin Simpson lost control and crashed his Chip Ganassi Racing Honda into the wall at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

And miraculously, he was able to walk away from the wreckage and give an interview soon after.

Though Simpson is safe, the crash was terrifying. His car started to spin on a turn after a wiggle. Then he crashed into the wall and went airborne. 

As the announcers mentioned upon watching replay of the crash, these INDYCAR rides are designed to keep cars from going airborne to the degree that they flip completely over. Design features, like additional holes made in the floor of the car, seem to have paid off here. 

The No. 8 car did go airborne and did flip but not completely over. Instead, it landed on its side before righting itself again.  

“By physics, you would have thought that car was going over, but the advancements that INDYCAR made on the floor of these cars definitely came into play there,” FOX Sports INDYCAR analyst James Hinchcliffe noted. 

And FOX Sports INDYCAR play-by-play analyst Will Buxton pointed out that the 20-year-old Simpson is a “lucky boy.” 

But again, this is all by design.

“I’m all good, praise the Lord,” Simpson told FOX Sports pit reporter Georgia Henneberry after the crash. He also said that “It’s a tough way to start Fast Friday.”

Simpson mentioned that it was “a weird crash, everything about it was weird” before explaining that “even from outlap, just something didn’t feel quite right.” Simpson continued, saying, “It never really felt quite the way I expected it to.”

Simpson’s team has their work cut out for them now, as they try to identify just why No. 8 wobbled and spun into the wall the way it did and why it didn’t feel right to Simpson even before that. 

“We’ll go back, look at some data, try to figure out what might have been wrong and try to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

But Simpson wasn’t the only driver who fell victim to the misfortune of Fast Friday. Kyle Larson also wrecked, slamming the nose of his car into the wall. 

Like Kyffin, Kyle was able to walk away from the crash, jumping out immediately. It was his second crash this year at this track.

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