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NASCAR driver Corey LaJoie found himself in the middle of a scary moment on Monday when his race car flipped upside down and rolled several times during a race at Michigan International Speedway.
Thankfully, LaJoie was able to walk away from the incident.
But NASCAR has taken several precautions in recent years to avoid cars getting airborne, and LaJoie’s wreck left commentators baffled as to the cause of his car taking flight.
“We have a good car and I found a way to flip it upside down. Twice this year we’ve been upside down, and I hadn’t been upside down my whole career,” LaJoie said after the wreck.
“It was a ride, buddy. There’s sparks and dirt and all sorts of stuff coming in. I just hate that our Garner Truck Camaro got a little dinged up. I think we had a top-12, top-10, car today, and I hate that we ended up on our roof.”
So, why did LaJoie’s car seemingly take off out of nowhere following contact with fellow driver Noah Gragson?
Well, meteorologist Kyle Noel says a combination of unique weather conditions and an extremely fast track are to blame.
Why is that important? Well, cars are going around 190 mph down the backstretch in the draft. If you have northern wind gusts up to 30 mph facing a car going sideway at 190 mph, you have a similar lifting force as a car going 220 mph with zero wind influence. #NASCAR
— Kyle Noël (@KyleNoelWx) August 19, 2024
Michigan is the fastest track on the NASCAR Cup Series calendar, with drivers regularly eclipsing 200 miles per hour. Unlike superspeedways Daytona and Talladega, drivers do not use restrictor plates which limit top speeds.
But on this particular day, speeds were even higher than normal due to extreme gusts that reached nearly 30 miles per hour.
Noel notes that “if you have northern wind gusts up to 30 mph facing a car going sideway at 190 mph, you have a similar lifting force as a car going 220 mph with zero wind influence.”
NASCAR cars are designed to create downforce when driving in the usual direction. But when that direction changes, the same design elements can create lift.
While the cars have mechanisms meant to keep them on the ground, the speed at which LaJoie was traveling meant the car began to rise before those elements could take effect.
Thankfully, LaJoie escaped the crash unharmed. But his scary crash is a display of both how dangerous NASCAR racing can be as well as the immense power of uncommon weather.