As a motorsports videographer, I can tell you that sometimes we are told to never release certain types of footage by the sanctioning bodies. I have actually had to negotiate posting video of parts failures before. We are encouraged to turn such footage over to sanctioning bodies for legal purposes and also for study, however. That being said, I can understand both sides. On one hand, I feel like seeing all of the available footage of incidents would give the fan a better understanding of not only the danger of a sport, but how drivers and vehicles are actually affected when something happens. A sense of realism. On the other hand, I agree that there would likely be backlash, both detrimental to a sport and costly in various ways. Unfortunately, that's pretty much the way it is across the board though. I was watching the race on TV and I'll never forget the shock in Dale Jarrett's voice when they showed that lone angle of Sadler's wreck though. "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh"

I swear Sadler always had the weirdest crashes and luck. That random 2004 Dega flip, the awful 2003 one, his 2000 Michigan flip and this. Also finished runner up in Xfinity points 3 times. Still think his career is a big what if

NASCAR definitely does hide footage, especially in-car stuff. Good example is Tony Stewart's flip at Talladega in 2012. They showed replays from all angles but never from in-car. Later, they used that in-car footage in a promo commercial. It's very quick and very rare, but shows that they did archive it.

I absolute agree with you about this crash. I was watching the race live at the time and even the broadcasters were questioning why there were no shots covering that accident. Elliott Sadler was a beast. He took quite a few hits in his career. I liked him.

NASCAR's fear of airing Sadler injured or even dead was the reason we never saw other angles. After Dale's death they stopped showing replay's right away. Even the Preece wreck this weekend took a very long time before they showed the replay. When there was confirmation he was moving they probably got the all clear to show it. Ryan Newman at Daytona, same thing. Both my kids watched Marco Simmochelli of MotoGP die on live TV, those replay's are ingrained into their minds. Same with dissecting Dan Wheldon's replay's before announcing his passing. Networks know better to just replay serious wrecks now.

Somebody gotta do an interview with Sadler abt what happened during the wreck. Esp if he flipped. It helps that he was conscious during the wreck

I think the reason they didn't show any other footage of the wreck is because of the engine. The fact that the engine made it all the way towards the transition between grass and the asphalt meant that the engine flew from Sadler's initial impact. I think when he spun off of the inside wall, the engine flew immediately, and NASCAR didn't want the fans to see an engine flying towards the track and, more importantly, the drivers. They didn't want to show the fans the flaws and dangers of the COT, so that's why they hid the footage. I mean, why else would the cut away from the only angle of the crash? It's because that's when the engine flew away from the car. Just my thought, but who knows if that was the case or not.

I was in an Iracing lobby with Elliot Sadler like 2 years ago and asked him if he ever got to see the crash from a good angle and he left me on read :(

The part about Sadler saying he flipped higher than the catchfence at Michigan is what shocked me the most. Like, I'm trying to imagine what that would even look like but can't. Which I mean, exactly the reason NASCAR would want to conceal it lol. Great video

As an insider, I can tell you that your suspicions are not unfounded. Having worked in racing for over 25 years from my families Indycar team to NASCAR and IMSA and F1. The sanctioning bodies have become hyper protective to the point of making them look worse by not sharing the information. When I worked for Bill Simpson at the racetrack, I built almost all the drivers helmets. We would send a shell out to their painters, Jason Beam, Nick Pastura, etc and then they would ship the painted shell to me at the tracks and I would reconstruct their helmets. Add the snell foam insert, cheek pads, rubber gasket around the eye port and base of the helmet and then install their preferred visor, and any customization needed, like Dale Jr has a bump on the back of his head (the way his skull is shaped) so I would have to carve out some foam in that part of the helmet to make it more comfortable for him. So on and so on. I drove a 28 foot trailer to all the races and parked in the garage next to the series haulers. So whenever serious crashes happen one of the first things they did was to bring me the helmets involved where I would inspect them for damage, also right after Dale Sr,,'s death Bill Simpson and I and NASA worked to make a helmet restraint system called the Decelerator. You can see many of the drivers using part of our original design still today instead of the HAN's device. Like Larson. The thing about these crashes that NASCAR still doesn't seem to understand is that in a wreck, there are multiple crashes happening, you hit the wall with the car, your body hits the inside of the car, and your brain hits the inside of your skull! No matter what speed you wreck at. The reason that they probably don't want the Jeff Gordon hit seen by anyone is most likely that even with the HAN's device, his neck still probably hyper extended. Not to a serious point, but enough to raise questions by viewers and other drivers especially. Anyway, great video. Keep up the great detective work.

On the Dale Jr. Download recently, Donnie Allison said that he once saw alternate footage of the infamous last lap of the 1979 Daytona 500, which the public has never seen. It does seem that NASCAR has more video of races than has ever been broadcast.

Strangely enough, two of Sadler's major crashes in his career (this incident here plus his 2000 Michigan flip) were only partially captured, unless NASCAR really does have the full footage of both wrecks somewhere.

I remember watching this live. If I remember correctly, it's been confirmed that NASCAR has G-Force data from this wreck and classifies it as the hardest impact in (recorded) NASCAR history. I can see both sides being completely true; it wouldn't surprise me at all that NASCAR not only hides additional footage but also puts some sort of NDA in place with anyone involved to not talk about the nitty gritty details either. As a long time fan though, there isn't a replay that I've wanted to see more than the replay of this exact wreck. Fantastic video and insight by the way! Really enjoyed this!

2:56 is really funny now because I know exactly what crash they're referring to but thats definitely not going to be "Preece's crash" anymore since the Daytona wreck is definitely going to replace Kansas for hid most infamous wreck

The 2007 David Reutimann crash at California Speedway is also quite a mystery, as there were never any outside angles of the actual impact. You should do another video like this one on this crash as well.

I have thought this for a long time now, that someone captured the view via someones on-board camera You coveree all the views and ideas that i have had over the years. Great video.

Elliott Sadler, 2010 Pocono wreck was one of the scariest wrecks in NASCAR history

I remember watching this live on tv and couldn't believe there were no better replays. I understand not showing them until they find out if the driver is ok.

You hit the nail right on the head when you refer to NASCAR burying footage that illustrates unsafe track conditions. Good work. This requires further investigation.

It still amazes me that Sadler survived that impact as well as he did! That guardrail/dirt wall impact was extremely violent and then to end up that far back out into the track😲

This also goes for Bruce Jacobi. The replay that we know had focused on something else before turning to Jacobi. But there were 2 more cameras for the backstretch around turn 2 at Daytona. This was the wide shot from somewhere high in the infield to get a view from the back as cars pass by, and one facing the turn itself.

I don’t think there’s anything that was attempting to be hidden with this crash. You hit the nail on the head when you brought up Gordon’s crash in 08 and it was a split second decision when no one knew what Sadlers condition was and out of respect for him withheld airing the footage.

THANK YOU! im glad you mentioned sadlers 2000 michigan crash and nascar hiding the footage of his car going higher then the catch fence. i remember sadler made a tweet about this!

This does make a lot of sense. I never thought that it wasnt captured on camera, just that Nascar didnt want that footage out there. Gotta protect the brand and partnerships.

I really hope an angle of this crash surfaces one day

12:00 I believe Timothy Peter's wreck at Texas would also fit this situation because he had a cockpit cam also.

Its time for Nascar to release the footage. We're 2 generations of car past this era. Pocono has been updated and modernized for a decade now. There is no reason to hide this anymore (same with Gordon's Vegas crash. It was over 15 years ago, hes fine, and the track has been updated for a long time).

I think part of the reasoning for the lack of footage was the explosion of debris from the front of Sadler's car. Being that they were trying to push the safety of COT at the time, having footage of front suspension, a wheel and a full engine being thrown from the front end of a badly damaged car probably wasn't what they wanted to show. Not so much for the safety of the driver, but more for the safety of other competitors and spectators. The fact is the impact of the incident is actually shown, it's the footage of the aftermath prior to everything coming to rest that's been withheld.

Great video. The extent of your research does not go unnoticed. Hope your account gets the traffic it deserves!

That backstretch wall has always been a problem. I recall watching that crash and anytime an engine gets torn out of a race car, it isn't good. And looking even further back in history of that backstretch wall, Davey Allison had a terrible wreck with that wall. The old wall that was there prior to Elliots crash was different and absolutely shredded Davey's #28 to pieces. That was a very scary wreck to watch and was televised and replayed over and over even before knowing whether or not Davey was injured or worse.

I think I can explain why Dale Jr and McMurray didn’t have video of it. Though someone in the industry can say otherwise because this is only based on observation from being an avid fan since 2005. The 8 cars that were selected for broadcast cameras in a race had multiple cameras onboard, but they only had one camera FEED to the production truck. My guess is each of the 8 cars had someone actively choosing which of the camera angles in their car was selected to be fed to the production switcher. Whatever was fed to the production was what was saved for replay. The car camera operators for McMurray and Jr. were likely choosing cameras that Sadler was out of frame on. This practice is entirely different now since the CoT days. Replays today are far better at showing relevant camera angles because it’s not one feed be per car, but each camera has its own feed. Just my thoughts and observations. Love the video!

Interesting. I was a little surprised they showed Blaney's incar at Daytona. It is probably the most accurate replay that could give us an idea of what the in car of Earnhardt Sr fatal wreck looked like. Blaney was thrown forward very hard and thats with the safer wall basically getting compacted to its limit and him wearing a hans device. Really telling on what Dale Sr went through.

Additionally other wreck angles were withheld were Larson’s last lap crash at the 2015 Daytona, Allgaier/Gililand Kansas 2014, and Logano Indy RC 2021. All these angles were later shown on Racehub in compilations of highlights but were never recorded and put on KZfaq. Additionally Kyle Larson flip at Talladega the perfect angle inside turn 2 was frozen at the moment of impact for seconds and the production never once let it play And then cut away from it. This crash specifically I feel would be another good one to analyze

For now, the only thing we know for sure is that Kurt definitely didn't get the worst of it btw great video

Marty Reid: Kurt's getting the worst of it John Cena: Are you sure about that?

There was a serious injury in a practice crash back in the late 70s and a photographer who was photographing the car being loaded on the hauler had his film taken away from him. They'll cover up what they can and always have.

I was in the infield that day on the exit of turn 1. I remember in our field of vision seeing the contact with Kurt and him throwing up dirt. Then a group of guys standing on top a truck yelled out, “holy shit, he flipped.” I thought they were talking about Kurt at the time. Given how Elliot’s car looks I don’t think it flipped. But those guys on the truck had a much better view than myself and there’s no video disproving their theory. Unfortunately, I was so close to the crash and yet unable to see it.

I always thought the lack of footage was odd. This wasn't the 70s/early 80s, where 'no footage ' was commonplace.

Hello, Nfjj i have to first applaud you for going this in depth. However as a current NASCAR employee in the media library and i pull footage from our archive everyday. I have even pulled for this actual race. I can tell you first hand that what you see on the this broadcast is what we have.

If we make a big enough deal out of this, there's always a chance nascar might notice and show us the footage of the other angles, whether or not those angles actually captured the wreck This is a call to action boys, let nascar know we want to see all the footage. F1 does something similar with their "all the angles" videos, so something of this concept is not entirely out of the question

I believe it all. I believe I still have a VHS Tape of the live recording of Daytona when Dale died. Only once did they show footage from a Camera on the Wall right at the point of impact. Every other angle looks like an easy accident. That one gave me chills.... This angle gave the clearest footage of the bump, and how fast he went from the bottom to the wall because there was no more zoom... It was right there.... I completely understand why they did not ever release / show that footage again. If someone could enhance it, you could could possibly be looking through the Windshield....

I actually also believe that NASCAR deliberately withheld footage of Richard Petty's 1988 Daytona flip. The camera that recorded the crash live and that was used in the replay (The one overlooking the exit of turn 4 entering the tri-oval) actually showed the whole crash and it's on KZfaq somewhere. It clearly shows Petty being spun out, blowing over and sailing across the track on his nose before hitting the catchfence and flipping. But the replay during the broadcast is deliberately cut to omit the blow over. This is likely because this was the first Daytona 500 that used restrictor plates after Bobby Allison flew into the catch fence a year before. Showing yet another blowover during a time of much scrutiny for NASCAR was probably a huge concern at the time since they wanted everyone to feel safer because of the new restrictor plates.

There’s footage of Austin Dillon’s terrifying crash so I don’t get why there isn’t any of Elliott Sadler

I remember posting the clip of the TV footage on my page that evening. That night, there was a video posted by a fan from the infield. It really wasn't the greatest angle ever, it was actually worse than TV. But it did show the front of the car and the engine in the air for a brief moment. The video was removed very, very shortly after it was uploaded. Then about 10 days later, there was another video uploaded that was obviously in the infield near the crash but it was up like it was on a platform. Possibly from where the camera crews are. And it showed Sadler coming in hot as hell, smack the wall, bounce back and immediately started spinning counter clockwise in the air like a top for about 3 rotations(hard to tell with the dust) with the front end slightly elevated/car was at a slight angle with the front elevated. The car then came back down pretty flush and spun about 3 more times up towards the track. The engine broke free, but it stayed pretty close to the car. That video was gone probably 2 hours after it was uploaded. Surely somebody had to have downloaded it but I never saw it again.

Great video and I like the theories. I’ve always been curious about in car cameras and how some only have certain cameras, and even how it appears on the broadcast that they only have one section of camera at a given time (i.e. Gordon’s 2008 LV crash). I’ve found over the years that the one camera only at a time (at least on the actual broadcast) to rob the viewer of what could be a better view of a specific crash or event, yet we never see those views. Keep it up!

It would've been cool if nascar did show the hood view of Jeff Gordon's crash all the through instead of cutting it but at least we saw Ryan Blaney's wreck on Saturday at Daytona which could give us an idea how Sadler wrecked.

For obvious reasons, it wouldn’t be shown, but I’d imagine that it’s possible that there is in-car footage of Dale Earnhardt in the 2001 Daytona 500. He had the usual on board cameras that day and that usually includes the in-car. The argument that Gordon’s Las Vegas wreck’s in-car was withheld because of Gordon’s body being “disturbing” kinda leans in that direction. As far as the video’s subject accident, I’d be surprised if Sadler was never interviewed about the wreck because of how much mystery there is to it. If not, Dale Jr. get on it. (Thinking about it at the very least he must have had a post-exit interview after he left the infield care centre).

They thought he died. The Director in the truck - not the cameraman - cut away, which happens in all sports and news when there's a gruesome injury or potential loss of life. Why the footage never came out, who knows.

Dude, great video. Very well thought out and presented. I remember that race for sure! My roommate at the time was a big Elliot Sadler fan and the room went quiet. We all let out a big sigh when it was announced that he was ok. Then we celebrated that fact that Kurt Busch was out of the race.

Building a pocket like that in the infield is almost criminal. You know sooner or later someone is going in there and it will be bad or fatal.

I was at this race and have pictures of the car coming back into the pits on a separate flatbed from the engine. I don't think it was a conspiracy as much as the cameras and telecast was distracted by Kurt Busch's wreck, on top of no one knowing exactly how badly hurt Elliot Sadler was. You saw the TV footage of him slow to get out of the car - he was hurt, and we all didn't know how bad (or good) shape he was at the time. Conspiracy? No. Respect for the driver? Yes.

Well done video! Just glad Elliott (and Kurt) were ok. You've obviously put a lot of time into this and have to say I agree with everything you've discovered. Have you tried to interview any of the drivers around the wreck or maybe even track down some camera or TV people? One good contact could open up a whole can of worms. Another option is finding a "raw feed" recording of the race (if one is available). Sometimes, they have different footage than show on TV or during the commercials they run through replays (sometimes much later in the race). I've even heard the talking heads and producers making notes. Just an idea.

Something a lot of people don't understand regarding in-car cameras: The broadcast team typically doesn't have the ability to select between different angles on the same car during replays. Let's say you have a roof, bumper, and interior camera on a car. We'll call those angles 1A, 1B, and 1C. There's a camera operator whose job is to pick which of those 3 angles is "active" at any given time, even if the TV broadcast isn't currently using a shot from that particular car. When the broadcast decides "go to car 1," what ends up on air is at the mercy of the camera operator's decisions regarding which of those 3 angles to use. Since that's all happening in real-time, when they show a replay, it'll be the same combination of angles as what the camera operator decided to do in the first place. Think of it like you're recording something on your TV, and you change channels. When you rewind the footage, you can't go back to the channel you were watching before, you're going to see the channel change in the same spot. Go watch any crash where they're on a roof cam when the wreck first happens, if they switch to a bumper cam mid-wreck, you'll see that switch happen every time they show the replay from that car. So if the camera operators on McMurray and Earnhardt's cars didn't happen to be on the bumper cam at the time of Sadler's crash, they wouldn't have caught it. Same with the replay of Gordon's Las Vegas wreck. As far as I'm concerned, Sadler's story of the Michigan flip is the equivalent of an old fisherman telling a story where the fish magically gets bigger every time the story gets told. There's simply nothing in the available footage that indicates the car ever got that high. No grass to dig into, rolling downhill, and the car stayed side-over-side the whole time. The roof cam doesn't show the nose getting much higher than the top of the wall, and the far shot is clearly panning to the right to catch the wreck when it first starts. It was a non-televised practice session in 2000, they probably had very few camera people even working. Literally the only thing I'm curious about with the Pocono crash is the turn 2 camera pointing down the backstretch. That should've caught it.

One thing you are wrong about: Those cameras in the turns were not manned by cameramen. It would have been far too unsafe to do so. Those cameras were remotely controlled in the truck. Since the truck crew was primarily focused on Kurt, it is entirely possible that those remote cameras were not pointed in the direction of the wreck. Simple fact is that anyone who has worked in broadcasting, especially sports broadcasting, will tell you that mistakes happen every broadcast. A good crew will hide those mistakes, but now and then you see them, and this was one of those instances.

I think there are a couple reasons why there hasn’t been a replay of this crash released. One that I for sure agree on is the lack of the safety features at Pocono and how this crash exposes the track using earth as a barrier for the inside wall and lack of fencing on the outside wall. I think the height in which Sadler’s car got well exceeded that of the outside wall and would have raised the issue of the car sailing out of the track had the car flown further towards the outside wall. Something that I find interesting is how the engine block is dislodged from the car. Has something like that occurred in crashes before during Nascar’s car of tomorrow age or would this incident have been the first?

Drivers have complained for years about inner barriers having bad angles

Let’s be honest. If they had a good replay they would’ve used it in promos for the upcoming races.

Here's to hoping we get some good footage of the wreck one day.

The camera that was on Sadler's crash has the footage. The director cut from it in the replay because they didn't want to show it. But of course they have the footage. The camera op would have followed the Sadler car to completion.

Why hasn’t anyone interviewed Sadler about this?

In 75 Years NASCAR has censored several crashes, not showing on board cameras or clear angles of really hard crashes, and I think they should have stopped doing it a long time ago.

It makes me wonder about Ryan Preece’s crash this weekend. That was one of the scariest wrecks I’ve ever seen and I’ve never seen so my angles and videos of one crash. That car was higher than the catchfence too

You definitely put forward a plausible theory about there being additional video footage of this accident that has not been made publicly available. NASCAR's TV partners were using enough cameras even 10 years earlier to make it highly unlikely that TV didn't get more footage of this wreck. While it is understandable that ESPN would have wanted to err on the side of caution when it came to showing some of those angles until Sadler's condition was known, they could have chosen to show additional footage after finding out that he wasn't seriously injured.

I think there is evidence of the crash and what exactly happened, especially because I remember them saying it was the hardest hit in NASCAR history, but why they’ve never released I don’t know. My personal theory is that Sadler got airborne and maybe even flipped, just going off the angle and how hard he hit. I hope one day either video of this crash surfaces or someone asks Sadler about it so we know exactly what happened.

Some of these camera angles seem to remote and not ran by an operator on the camera so it’s entirely possible the cameras controller in the “truck” is operating a few at once… and not focused properly all lap.

I recorded the 2001 Daytona 500. They showed footage of Dale Earnhardt's inside camera of the crash and his crew chief talking to him saying "Dale. You ok Dale?" You will never see that footage ever again considering they were showing a dead man.

im pretty sure nascar does have footage of the crash its just that the hit was probably so hard to the point were they couldnt show it to the public if they did show it to the public people would ask for more safety and stuff nascar does have footage of the crash inculding the hard hit the hard hit he took to

3:41 "there were 9 drivers with onboard cameras" view only shows 8

Another case of "missing footage" is, in the IndyCar world, the fatal crash of Tony Renna. There are all kinds of rumors about that, the main one being that Renna's car, on going airborne, penetrated the crash fence and even the seats in the grandstand, with some of the debris actually reaching the street (Georgetown Road, if you know the Indy Motor Speedway you can picture it in your mind). There is some security camera footage of debris in the street and being cleaned up. That I've seen. One can imagine what happened to Renna, but the rumor has it on the level of Russell Phillips or Francois Cevert, or worse. This happened in an off-season practice with no one in the grandstand, but I guess no one wants to present to the public the idea of an IndyCar taking off like a cruise missile, going through the fence, the grandstands and landing in the street happening on a race day with a people actually in the seats. We don't actually need to see the gruesome footage of Renna's crash, but by suppressing any information on the crash only makes us believe the worst rumors. In the case of Sadler, no one was killed and there was not even a threat to spectators in the crash, so why would they bother to suppress the footage?

Why would the crash footage create backlash for NASCAR? I get how it would be a bad look for Pocono, but I would think that showing that the driver walked out unscathed after such a horrific crash would only show that the car was in fact safe.

There is at least one more angle of the Blaine Perkins flip at dega earlier this year that shows the entire first part of the wreck before him disappearing behind the infield RVs.

May not have seemed it at the time but Jeff Gordon was seriously injured. He needed a trainer and a therapist to help alleviate his back pain from the crash. It had flared up at times during the span of 08-15. The crash literally cut his career short, but I guess that could be untrue because he was 44 when he retired. Even contemplated retirement in 08 because of his pain. Hurts to find this out years after his retirement as a Gordon fan.

Bad hit. About the worse I’ve ever seen in a stock car. Blew that mound of dirt out the other side. Damn.

You forgot one camera angle event. 2001 Daytona 500 Tony Stewart crash and red flag. This was Fox's first broadcast. They came out of commercial break and cars were still hitting each other. They switched to Tony's in-car and you could see his head slumped down and arm just hanging there to the side. They cut away real quick when he wasn't moving. They NEVER showed that again. Sadly about 45 mins to an hour later that crash was overshadowed and forgotten.

i do think there's footage but was likely through crappy low frame rate track camera's that only the track or nascar had access to. Pocono at the time was one of the hardest tracks to get the right view angles until the technology got better with smaller remote camera's a few years later. that being said i do think who ever was in charge of ESPN's camera's took a conservative choice not to show it thinking they were going to have another Dale Earnhardt outcome with how hard the hit was and didn't want to make the same mistake that was made when Dale's crash happened.

Tony Rennas crash was supposedly caught on a security camera at indy. But the the Indy Racing League destroyed that footage.

While watching this i just noticed in kurts onboard rear view that you can make out a big object flying and landing in the background.

A few things. The camera cars have a standard number of cameras in them. Typically around the time of the race it was 3-4. Roof, rear bumper, cockpit, and then a special camera placed in a unique location. Since NASCAR wants all the cars to be basically the same the camera cars will all have the same amount. Even cars without cameras still have camera bodies mounted to them to keep them the same as the others. The wall cameras are “unmanned”. In the old days yes there was an operator standing on the other side of the wall running the camera. But since the 90’s these cameras are operated from a trailer near the control room. These operators cannot see and hear the same things like their counterparts at the track. The only audio they can really hear is the director telling them what to shoot. As far as what to shoot. The camera operators pretty much have to listen to what the director tells them to look at. There is a little freedom, especially when something happens. But when the director sees something going on he is going to tell them to shoot that, it’s then up to the camera operator to “look away “ from his tiny screen to see if anything else is going on or to notice anything else going on in the screen. Not saying there is no footage or that what I wrote above in the third point is exactly what happened. You presented some really good points and it does make you think. Great video.

It at Pocono where Steve Park and Dale Jr. got together and Park's car flipped 8 years before???

I think that as a sport all footage should be released. Not necessarily to a full live audience in real time but at some point it needs to be released. I’m sure some drivers haven’t seen some footage of them wrecking. How often do we have an onboard in the cockpit of drivers who flip and we never see them.

If he Flipped the roof would be more damaged, he probably hit with the rear so hard that the momentun of hiting that he went on his side and almost flipped.

They basically admitted they were using copyright law erroneously "out of respect to the injured'. Something needs to be done about copyright law.

Watch the window net on the hit angle, you can see his head hit the steering wheel before the car rebounds away

I remember watching this wreck live, standing inches from the TV during the replays. One thing I noticed is the moment you see Sadlers car hit the wall you can barely make out what looks like Sadler being catapulted towards the steering wheel. Like his harness or seat broke. If that did happen I could see NASCAR wanting to cover that up.

What does “disturbing body movement” even look like? Is there an uncensored example out there somewhere? It’s not like Gordon or Sadler were injured

Don't forget Juan Pablo Montoya Jet dryer crash in 2012, nobody has a clearly footage of them.

I don't know why any of the series started racing at Pocono again. I think it's a cool track, but it has never been made properly safe for drivers.

While you did a pretty decent job at conveying a respectable theory, I do have some rebuttals that will refute your claims. 1) There were 20 onboard cameras for that race, two of which were mounted on each safety car. So that leaves only 18 up for grabs. 8 of them were mounted the roofs of 8 different drivers, 5 of them were mounted into the cabins of 5 of the cars, and the final 5 were mounted on the rear gate of 5 of the cars. Considering Busch & Johnson were the only drivers in the field to have three different onboard camera angles, that leaves another 6 cameras to be distributed across the 6 other cars. So now it’s pretty clear that onboard footage was already assembled. 2) The cameras you mentioned on the wall are actually robotic and could only be operated one at a time in 2010. While the thought that they could have caught the second crash (Sadler), it is extremely more likely that those cameras were not angled to capture it as they were probably tracking the leader and were being reset back into their initial position at the moment of action. It’s not the first time that’s happened, but it does seem more likely. 3) You have to remember, the only crash that was happening before Sadler was Busch being turned into the wall by Johnson and the subsequent series of events that transpired at that exact moment. Because every manned camera immediately focused on an out-of-control race car at the front of the field and was still being wrecked, that was the only important angle to focus on. In the days after the crash, ESPN uploaded the full, unedited footage of the infield camera too show that at least one person did see a second car had crashed. That camera operator acted as quickly as possible to capture that crash, but by the time he got the car in shot, the crash was over and every single piece of debris had come to a stop. Same thing with Kurt Busch’s rear view camera; that angle wasn’t discovered until days after the crash and was aired continuously on SportsCenter until the very next race. I remember in the days following the crash NASCAR putting out a statement saying they were investigating the crashes and having to use only two physical & one virtual camera angles alongside the onboard telemetry to determine the sequence of events that occurred. Now don’t take this as demeaning, but rather as a critique. I do think you made some really great points about camera angles and footage being withheld, especially when it comes to serious incidents that happen. A great example is how many times Jules Bianchi’s crash has copyright claimed by Formula 1, with the only footage out there being the fan angle from the Casio Triangle seats. Indianapolis did the same thing with Tony Renna’s crash (granted, no one [except maybe psychopaths] wants to see a human skull bouncing down the street onto someone’s literal doorstep). WEC did the same thing with Allan Simonsen, until Pratt & Miller released the onboard angle from the 63? Corvette as that was the only car behind Simonsen’s Aston. So while you do have a lot of wonderful examples & proofs of this happening before & after that happened, when you start to complicate the topic, that’s where mistakes and misconceptions start to emerge. Most of the time the most simplest conceptions are the correct ones, and in the case of Sadler, the simple answer to that only two physical angles & one virtual angle ever caught that crash and that’s all that exists is the correct answer.

I have a guess……and it’ll really be upsetting but here it is: both Sadler and Gordon’s body movement after their accidents/hits were more severe than Earnhardt Sr’s 2001 accident and people would once again bring up the theory that Earnhardt was a set up to be injured or worse in 2001.

Bull shiz dude I was saying this years ago and nascar been holding footage from the videos being taken of races that means from the late 60s to 70 till now

I saw the Larson crash live I was 27 fence polls down from where he hit the fence, very scary tires and debris flying in the stands

I would think Pocono would be the most likely candidate for putting the kibosh on crash footage. Pocono has been the site of some of the worst non-fatal crashes of all-time (Davey Allison's wild ride, Bobby Allison's career-ender) because of how unsafe the track was off the track.

We need more on this hopefully they release a clip

I believe, that during the race programming, the ESPN producer would've had full control over what they showed. NASCAR might've asked them to do something. But, it would be ESPN that had control of their production value. Weird things happen. It's possible that the 3 cameramen just f'd up at the same time. Even the aerial camera focused so much on Busch, that Sadler was out of frame. Like you, I find the one that was panning back to the track, is suspicious. I wouldn't doubt that NASCAR holds some control over the in-car cameras. As far as what gets released. My ultimate question is... What does it matter? I'm sure the teams, especially Sadler's, would scrutinize this, as much as could be.

I'll say this much, considering the crash or crashes that got Pocono taken off the Indycar schedule not that long ago, if the full footage of the Sadler crash got out, considering what he had hit, the engine flying, and everything else, I would not be surprised if there would have been a call for Pocono to get booted off the NASCAR schedule.

You are 100% correct that ALL of the cars had a rear view camera! In the footage that you include in this very video, the Broadcast footage shows them switching fron "in-car" to "front view" of each driver one by one. And if they All had "in-car" and "F.V." why would Only Kyle be the only one with "Rear View"???

I think you’re probably absolutely right NASCAR should be on pay-per-view and let you see whatever happens

Never noticed this before but at 10:27 you see the outside wall in frame, always assumed this was an ordinary barrel roll but this means the roll could have been a pretty violent crash very near the fence.

Good video sir, been a NASCAR fan since 1991, went to my first race in 1993 then (Dover Downs Int Speedway) asphalt version. I know what im about to say is going to piss a few people off but keep an open mind when you see this. 2001 Dale Earnhardt Sr died along with the sport, Teresa Earnhardt with the backing of NASCAR decides to keep autopsy photos of Dale Sr sealed through then Gov Jeb Bush of Florida. I feel this was to save NASCAR the scrutiny of the public knowing what could happen with the at the time safety protocols for drivers. NASCAR has been doing this for years with other accidents fatal or non fatal. Almost like NASCAR dont want you to see certain things as they happen live because it would kill the business model aka EXPOSE them.

I somehow remember seeing it, it wasn't as violent as you would think. It looks like a normal impact and the engine just rips out. I remember Dale Earnhardt jr talking about how it was unacceptable that the wall came out right there and that there was dirt behind it.