Derrike Cope's day -- and car -- goes up in a blast of black smoke
Derrike Cope is best known for pulling off one of the greatest upsets in NASCAR history when he won the 1990 Daytona 500.
But now he may also be known for being the driver of the No. 70 car that appeared to literally blow up on the track with 24 laps remaining in Saturday's Zippo 200 XFINITY Series race at Watkins Glen International.
Cope appeared to encounter mechanical trouble and/or possibly one or more flat tires as his car nearly slowed to a stop. And then -- BOOM! The entire front end of his machine went up in a spectacular cloud of black smoke.
Neither Cope nor NASCAR knew exactly what to make of the strange incident at first, with NASCAR impounding what was left of the car to take a closer look at what may have been the cause. Luckily, Cope was able to walk away from the incident unhurt.
We've impounded and will review to identify what exactly happened. Cope has been evaluated and released. #NASCAR https://t.co/wsJDQYoAoU
— David Higdon (@HigNASCAR) August 6, 2016
Upon further review and after working with NASCAR, Cope's race team was able to piece together what happened. It shared the details in the following tweet.
#DCRTeam70 Official Watkins Glen Report: pic.twitter.com/v2jlPnNBCN
— Derrike Cope Racing (@DCopeRacing) August 7, 2016
Elton Sawyer, NASCAR Vice President of Officiating and Technical Inspection, told NASCAR.com on Sunday morning that the odd explosion involving Cope's car Saturday was the result of excessive brake heat with little place to escape, forcing a dramatic tire failure. He also said the car has been released back to Cope’s team after being examined at the track.
Cope said he’s never experienced anything like it.
"In 35 years of racing, I don't think I've ever seen that transpire before," Cope told NBCSN after being released from the infield care center on Saturday. "We were just trying to survive and get through this thing so next week we could kind of work on this thing.
"I lost the brake pedal going into Turn 1, and I knew something happened to a piston or whatever so I just went easy down there and got off the end down there and started coming to a stop, and the whole thing just blew the hood off. And I don't know really what it was. It looked like the shocks were all intact and the tires were up, so I don't know really what exploded."
