NASCAR Crash Video of the Week: Las Vegas

This week's crash video of the week takes on a particularly nasty tone with 4-time Sprint Cup champion Jeff Gordon.

This incident, from Sunday's UAW-Dodge 400 in Las Vegas, happened after a restart with 5 laps to go. As you'll see, Gordon (in the green car) will slide underneath Dale Earnhardt Jr. (white car) as Matt Kenseth (blue car) heads up top.

As they enter turn 1, Gordon and Kenseth draw alongside each other and when they exit turn 2 at 0:14, they make contact.

Gordon admitted fault for the accident after he got tight off of turn 2, slid into Kenseth, and then lost control himself. The No. 24 then slid into a break in the inside wall, catching the front end and ripping it all to pieces.
He had his breath taken away and walked gingerly to the waiting ambulance.

The hit was so hard that the transmission was knocked out of the race car. Calling it the hardest hit he's ever taken, Gordon wasn't happy with the wall's design.

"I couldn't have hit the wall at a worse angle," said Gordon. "It really tore the thing up. I'm really disappointed right now in this speedway for not having a soft wall back there. And even being able to get to that part of the wall shouldn't happen."

Las Vegas Motor Speedway and NASCAR are both looking at the wall, and hopefully there will be changes done to all NASCAR tracks in light of this huge incident.

One thing that I missed completely the first time I watched was the incredible save that Matt Kenseth had (2:47). His car spun completely sideways off of turn 2, and he had straightened out and still nearly up to speed by the time he reached turn 3.

Gordon and Kenseth have had a history together including a shove at Bristol and a punt at Chicagoland. Both of those hung heavy on Kenseth, who wound up 20th.