DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Two of the fastest guys in the first NASCAR XFINITY Series practice session at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway will have to go to backup cars after colliding just minutes into the 55-minute session Thursday afternoon.
GMS Racing driver Spencer Gallagher appeared to have a flat tire and lost control of his No. 23 Allegiant Air Chevrolet in Turn 3 and spun directly into the path of Cole Custer who received heavy front-end damage from the impact.
Before the crash, Custer had turned the second quickest lap with Gallagher right behind in third.
Both teams were diligently working to prepare their backup cars in hopes of making at least one lap in final XFINITY Series practice scheduled to run at 4:00 p.m.
“I don’t know, he must have blown a tire or something, look like he kinda got squirrely there and was on the apron and then he all the way up to the wall, just because he’s trying to save it.,” said Custer. “I felt like I had nowhere to go.
“This is our first speedway car that our team has hung – body wise. It was fast out there. I thought it was (going) to be pretty good. It just sucks. Our backup car should be plenty good enough and we’ll just go to race.”
Gallagher said he noticed he was having a problem on the backstretch and did what he could to avoid a bigger catastrophe.
“Our Allegiant Travel Chevy was fine,” Gallagher said. “We were sucking along behind the 98 (Mears) there and golly going down the backstretch about halfway down, I felt it start to wander. I knew something had to be wrong. Tried to get on the brakes and get away from it get down on the track and waive at people, but left rear tire went down.
“It’s not terribly easy to control something with no downforce and three tires. I just hate like hell that happened to Cole. I feel terrible for him. Sorry to him. It’s a terrible thing for both of us to have happened. That’s plate racing for ya. Sometimes, the gods get angry and just take from me.”
Despite limited practice on Thursday, Custer who got crashed out of both XFINITY Series superspeedway races earlier this season believes his backup machine will be just as competitive as his primary.
“I mean you’re pretty confident when you’re bringing to the race track set-up wise and everything,” Custer added. “You just have to hope for the best pretty much. It’s been kind of a wreck fest here the last couple of speedway races, so hopefully, we can just stay out of it.”
For Gallagher, a native of Las Vegas, Nev., Daytona was the second time he experienced a crash during the series’ first practice session this month. At Dover on June 2, Gallagher tangled with series regular Joey Gase sending both drivers to backup cars. In the race, he finished 31st after being involved in a Lap 76 accident.
While obviously disappointed himself, the 27-year-old says he felt worse for his team.
“Just hate that these GMS guys work so hard building these great cars and we have something silly like that happen to us in the first five minutes of it.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
