The 2012 Daytona 500 got off to a bit of a shaky start, didn’t it? For a while there, it was starting to feel more like a Major League Baseball game than a NASCAR race, with fans having to wait out not one but two rain-delays. However, once the race actually got underway Monday, we were given a spectacle no baseball game could ever provide: a fire delay. Juan Pablo Montoya lost control of his car and crashed into the back of a jet dryer truck carrying 200 gallons of kerosene, which set off a massive fireball.
So, as always, just when you start to think auto racing is kind of boring, something blows up. It’s totally awesome—unless someone dies.
Today, we celebrate the awesomeness of auto racing with a list of 15 insane crash GIFs. If you’re not a fan of NASCAR, or IndyCar, or Formula 1, or some other kind of auto racing…you just might be after you check these out.