Aric Almirola crash highlights danger, progress in NASCAR

At its core, auto racing always was and always will be dangerous. That’s a fact.

Saturday night’s scary crash at Kansas Speedway, where Aric Almirola plowed into Danica Patrick and Joey Logano was a sobering reminder of the laws of physics: Momentum equals mass times velocity.

In the case of Almirola, it was an object that weighed 3,450 pounds hitting another object of the same weight at a speed of around 200 miles per hour. That, by its very definition, is a violent impact.

Logano and Patrick were fortunate to be able to walk away.

Almirola was in stable condition after being airlifted from the track to a local hospital. We expect an update on the nature of injuries and his condition sometime…