Next Media Animation’s “Taiwan Animation” of the Daytona crash has all the absurdity and hyperbole you’d expect — fans being killed and turned into cheering ghosts, all the cars being Toyota Corollas because they don’t have a stock car stock animation, NASCAR literally erasing the video from YouTube — but the best part is easily the fact that nobody at NMA thought, “hey, it’s probably a bad idea to ask NASCAR fans what they think of this insulting, wacky parody video made by Asians.”

From the YouTube description:

As every NASCAR fan knows, you come for the crashes and stay for the races. But are NASCAR officials taking fan safety seriously enough?

NASCAR fans are stoic. Talk to any fan and they will admit to accepting some level of risk when watching the races live. Furthermore, the fine print on the back of admissions tickets would seem to absolve race officials of liability if fans are injured.

But despite the risks, are NASCAR officials doing enough to ensure no fan is ever hurt? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Predictably, NASCAR fans left their thoughts.

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Danica Patrick made her NASCAR debut yesterday in Daytona, and things didn’t go as well as she’d hoped.  Not only did she not win, she didn’t even finish.  She tried to work her way out of a 12-car orgy and ended up crashing herself.

Patrick finished sixth in last week’s ARCA event at Daytona, and felt comfortable enough to move her NASCAR debut up a week to the Nationwide opener. The IndyCar star went into Saturday’s start saying her main goals were finishing the race, staying out of trouble and learning as much as she can.–Fox Sports

Danica spent much of the race outside the top 20 and then the top 30, but to be fair, someone has to be last so it may as well be her.  Both Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the race’s winner Tony Stewart came to Patrick’s defense, citing the uniqueness of the Daytona event in general and the fact that she didn’t crap out sooner as reasons she’s legit.

“We’ll go to these other tracks where she’ll literally be driving the car, it’ll be handling good or bad,” Earnhardt said. “Then people can start forming their opinions on what kind of learning curve she has. But I feel pretty confident. She’s been in a tough situation with the media and the pressure and the attention, I couldn’t have done it.”–Fox Sports

All of the hype is certainly good for business.  There are plenty of sadists in this world that will tune in just to see if she fails.  However, she’s hot, young trim behind a powerful machine in a man’s sport–if she starts winning she’s going to be like a unicorn.  As long as she never lets herself go, anyway.  Then she’d be completely useless.