Ty Dillon's July featured a string of seriously unlucky incidents that the NASCAR Cup Series driver would probably like to put in the rearview mirror. It all started at the Quaker State 400 at Atlanta when he wrecked out on Lap 174. Then, a day before the race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Dillon found out he wouldn't be returning to Petty GMS Motorsports next season, leaving him without a team for 2023. Then just a day later at NHMS, Dillon wrecked out on Lap 5. The next week at Pocono he spun out and ultimately placed 22nd, and then to cap off his awful month, Dillon wrecked out at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
Now, Dillon's Indy wreck was definitely the most severe of the one of the month, as Kyle Larson jumped the curb coming off Turn 1 and slammed into Dillon at full speed. Fortunately, Dillon wasn't injured in the collision, but as you can see from the footage, the impact did some serious damage.
"I didn't see a whole lot," Dillon told NBC Sports after the wreck. "I saw a blue flash and I've never been hit so hard in my life. I'm grateful the good Lord was looking out for me, and these cars are so safe."
While Dillon was able to walk away from the crash without any serious injuries, he said that he was sore for almost a week afterwards.
"Typically, when you're going to hit the wall or you can see something coming, you will tense your core, tense your muscles as hard as you can — at least I do," Dillon said. "I think that maybe makes impacts feel different on different parts of your body."
"With that one, I had no getting ready for it. I think my body just took a lot of the dissipation of the impact. I think that's why my ribs and everything were just sore."
As for Larson (who missed the braking point and couldn't avoid the contact with Dillon), he took full responsibility for the wreck.
"I hit him hard and it knocked the wind out of me, so I knew it was a hard hit for him, too," Larson said. "And it was 1,000% on me, so I wanted to make sure he was OK. I like Ty. He's a really good guy. I felt bad immediately, and I wanted to check on him the next day. Thankfully, he understood the mistake and that made me feel much better about it because I feel horrible about it and just glad that we were both safe."
According to Dillon, there are no hard feelings between him and Larson.
"I wasn't mad," Dillon said. "He's too good of a driver for him to do anything like that on purpose. I know Larson. I think he was in shock initially because he asked me, 'What happened? I don't really know.' (Dillon told him) 'You hit me really hard.' But I was glad to see that he was OK."
"When I got out. I'm still trying to get my bearings back. Everybody was like, 'You were limping.' I had no leg problems. I just wasn't sure what on my body was still in the right place. So I was just kind of getting my feet under me. I think it just shocked him as much as anything. I could kind of see the fear and everything in his eyes."
"I'm sure from [Larson's] vantage point, it was really scary. He reached out to me on Monday checking in on me, and it was really kind. I knew it was a mistake. Looking at (the data from Larson's car), it's really a rare mistake that you wouldn't think that he would make, but we're all human. And that was kind of what I told him, 'Hey, we're all going to make mistakes."
Dillon has no chance of making the playoffs at this point, but hopefully he'll be able to string together some solid and consistent performances over the next couple weeks to wash the bad taste of July out of his mouth.
