By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
Following a crash during Friday night’s Camping World Truck Series season opener from Daytona International Speedway, Jennifer Jo Cobb took the hardest hit of her racing career.
It all occurred off Turn 4 on lap 56 when Grant Enfinger spun sideways and piled up more than a half-dozen of trucks. Cobb got the worst of it when her No. 10 Chevrolet slammed the inside SAFER barrier driver-side first.
Following the wreck, Cobb spent nearly 45 minutes in the Daytona infield care center before being released with only bruising to her left arm.
“As you can imagine, they just want to be overly cautious to make sure everything is OK,” Cobb said. “Also had some bumps and things like that that look kind of gross [laughs].”
Hanging back just past the halfway point, Cobb planned to take her truck to pit road when the accident sparked off Turn 4. That’s when she lost control.
“When I tried to swerve to drive around it, I thought, ‘Hey, go to pit road,'” she said. “I eased off the throttle, went toward pit road and it felt like I lost the rear. It went whacko.”
Cobb believes her arm hit the steering wheel on impact to cause the bruising.
“I fight to the end when I’m wrecking,” she said. “I’m going to hold on to the steering wheel right until the end. And right before the wall came up I thought, ‘Yeah, maybe not a bad day to get your hands up off the steering wheel.’ And I lunged forward and hit.”
Despite having a quick truck, Cobb left the speedway with a crashed truck to start the season. And in a race where fantasy can meet reality for small teams — Cobb’s lone Truck Series top 10 came here in 2011 — disappointment can reach a season high.
“The problem is we were fast,” she said. “We were up there with the fast guys. I knew better than to not really get up into the pack.”
Though it puts a damper on her early season momentum, the 44-year-old stays thankful and confident regarding NASCAR safety.
“You never know how you’re going to react to those things,” she said. “I’m happy to say I have complete and total faith in our trucks and our safety. NASCAR does a great job of making us safe. It doesn’t even shake me.
“It was a heck of a hard hit, but NASCAR has done so much to advance safety that I feel completely confident getting back in. It’s minor, trust me. We’re excited for Atlanta.”