And awayyyyy we go: The ARCA wreck ballet included this one by Bryan Silas, 11, Mikey Kile, 25, and Frank Kimmel, 44, spinning through turn four the ARCA Racing Series Lucas Oil Slick Mist 200 at Daytona International on February 6 2010.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - It may not unsafe, but it’s fair to say that the racing this year is going to be more dangerous.

NASCAR officials have loosened the reins. They have upped the ante. They have damned the torpedoes in order to let the drivers go full steam ahead.

Not that this had anything to do with NASCAR, but what caused me to ponder this subject was the Automobile Club of America (ARCA) race in which Danica Patrick made her NASCAR debut. The Lucas Oil Slick Mist 200 - which could have been run with the aforementioned "slick mist" coating the pavement - went almost seven laps before a wreck - no, that’s not the word; conflagration, maybe; or riot; or, simply, mess - enveloped the back straight of Daytona International Speedway in what seemed a never-ending string of crumpling metal and spewing smoke.

It looked as if the cars weren’t equipped with brakes. On television, Darrell Waltrip said, "Those last three or four cars shouldn’t have been in that crash."

Imagine the Keystone Kops at 180 mph. Or … Ricky Bobby.

Thankfully, Ms. Patrick was in front of a crash that looked as if it ingloriously snipped off the final third of the field.

ARCA is always an extreme example. This is a race where the sponsors set the tone. Among the sponsors on Saturday were Rip It Energy Fuel, PowerTrac Machinery, Monster Energy, ElectrifyingCareers.com, Anti-Monkey Butt Powder and, last but not least, the Drug Testing Centers of America.

But enough about ARCA.

NASCAR has backed off the control freakiness of recent times. The openings in the restrictor plates are larger. The "aerodynamic package" has been loosened and is scheduled to be loosened still more whenever the teams trade in their wings for spoilers. It’ll be a "spoilsport" again. (Drum roll, please.)

The name could be "Dr. Strangerub: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Draft."

Racing is starting to be about going fast again. For better or worse.

Mark Martin isn’t just the oldest pole winner in Daytona 500 history. He is the fastest Daytona pole winner (191.188 mph) in more than a decade. Joe Nemechek qualified at 194.860 mph before the July race in 1999.

Back to the frontier racing of ARCA. A chill went down my spine when a Dodge driven by Jill George of Cedar Falls, Iowa, hit the fourth-turn wall at an angle harsher than the one that killed Dale Earnhardt nine years ago.

No. Please.

George climbed out of the car. Whew. Turns out she is, in addition to a race-car driver, a chiropractor. That’s solid career planning.

What was left of Jill George’s car after smashing into the wall of Turn 4. (photo: Ovalscream)

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