'Daddy, you were flying like a feather': What it's like to flip a truck at 190 mph

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Every so often, Matt Crafton has a bad day at the office. But unlike you or me, where a bad day might involve coffee spilled in your lap or a phone dropped on the sidewalk, for Matt Crafton, a bad day involves getting upside down at 190 miles an hour.

Scene: Friday evening, Daytona International Speedway. The final lap of the Truck Series’ NextEra Energy Resources 250. Matt Crafton, the two-time Truck Series champion, is leading the race, just three turns from shaking off nearly two decades’ worth of frustration at Daytona.

And then … chaos.

A wreck behind him suddenly leaped forward and bit him, sending Crafton’s race hopes, as well as his truck, up in smoke. The video of Crafton’s truck spiraling into the sky, then landing back right-side-up, made the rounds of social media, and with good reason: this is a cinematic wreck, one where cars scatter like toys thrown by an angry toddler.

We wondered, what’s it like to endure one of these wrecks, where everything in your world flips literally upside down? So we reached out to Crafton on Saturday morning and got the rundown. Think you’re tough? Take a ride with Matt and see.

“It was the perfect storm to win the race,” Crafton said. “I had my teammate Ben Rhodes behind me. But then Johnny Sauter came up beside me and I thought, ‘Oh no.'” Crafton was driving and watching both the track in front of him and the cars behind him, and in his rear-view mirror he could see trouble developing.

Rhodes began fishtailing. “He got loose, and was going left, right, left,” Crafton said. “I thought he wasn’t going to get me, and then I felt the truck get really light.” Rhodes knifed hard toward the infield, hit Crafton in the left rear bumper, and there, troubles really began.

“At that point, I was along for the ride,” Crafton said. “I got spun completely around, and Johnny hit me head-on. All I could see was ground, ground, ground, sky, ground.”

Bear in mind that this is happening at 190 miles per hour. “This might be hard for people to understand, but it really feels like slow-mo when it’s happening,” Crafton said. “I had some choice words while I was up there.”

Crafton turned completely over and came down right on top of the rear of Sauter’s truck. “He’s beaten me enough,” Crafton laughed. “It’s about time he did something for me. He cushioned my fall.” Crafton said the feel was more of “compression” than force, and Sauter’s truck kept Crafton from getting hit even harder by any of the trailing trucks.

So Crafton was all right, but there was another matter: his family had been watching, and cameras were trained on his young daughter Elladee. “She had been getting so excited,” Crafton said. “She wanted daddy to bring her home a trophy. The wreck upset her pretty badly.”

Elladee panicked, wanting to talk to her father. Crafton underwent a checkup in Daytona’s infield care center, and immediately FaceTimed his daughter. By then, she’d calmed down, and offered up a succinct assessment of Crafton’s adventure:

“Daddy, you were flying like a feather!” Elladee Crafton said, and indeed, he was.

Bottom line, though: Crafton was just fine, thanks to safety protections in the cars and a bit of luck. “It was a solid shot,” he said, “a good punch by Daytona.”

But will it keep him out of the car for any length of time? “Absolutely not,” Crafton said. “I’m fine. I’m ready to go right now.” Crafton can also joke about the incident, noting that he got his sponsors plenty of airtime.

“For me, this was just like having a bad day at the office,” he said. “I’ve still got the Daytona monkey on my back. But the good far outweighs the bad in this sport for me.”

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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports and the author of EARNHARDT NATION, on sale now at Amazon or wherever books are sold. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.