‘I’ll be back’: NPR

Driver Ryan Preece is featured on stage Saturday at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. His car overturned in a terrifying wreck in the final laps of the race.

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James Gilbert/Getty Images

Driver Ryan Preece is featured on stage Saturday at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. His car overturned in a terrifying wreck in the final laps of the race.

James Gilbert/Getty Images

NASCAR driver Ryan Preece has been released from hospital less than a day after his car flew through the air nearly a dozen times in a crash at Daytona International Speedway in Florida.

Preece returned home to North Carolina on Sunday after leaving the Halifax Health Medical Center in the morning, his Stewart-Haas Racing team said. said in a tweet.

In an update earlier today, the team wrote, “He is awake, alert and mobile. He has been communicating with family and friends. He will be assessed by medical staff later this morning.”

The 32-year-old driver was taken to hospital Saturday night after his #41 Mustang rolled over at least 10 times during the final laps of the NASCAR Cup Series race.

Preece’s car was hit from behind by Erik Jones’ car, sending Preece accelerating left into an aerial spin past the grassy infield. His car landed upright and appeared to catch fire. Preece was able to get out of the car before being taken to the race track care center.

“It’s just plain violent,” NBC NASCAR analyst Jeff Burton said on the show. “It’s just amazing that an object weighing over 3,500 pounds could fly through the air like that.”

You don’t see those kinds of high-altitude crashes these days, Burton noted. NASCAR has changed the way cars are built, with an emphasis on safety.

“Fifteen to twenty years ago, these were the kind of wrecks we expected to see,” he said during the race, but that “NASCAR changed these cars a lot to try to keep them ground. And for the most part, unless these cars get into these kind of weird situations, it works.”

Shortly after being admitted to the hospital, Preece tweeted“I will be back.”

“If you want to be a racing driver, you better be tough. Damn it,” he wrote.