Carson Kvapil Flips and Barrel Rolls at Kansas in Rare Big Air Crash on an Intermediate

Shortly following the green flag of the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway Saturday evening, Carson Kvapil was involved in a flip.

Kvapil started on the outside of the front row and was sent barrel-rolling down the backstretch following contact on the second lap. The driver of the No. 1 was able to safely exit his car after safety crews righted it and walked away under his own power.

He has since been seen and released from the in-field care center.

Off the high-speed tracks of Talladega, Daytona, Atlanta, and Michigan, flips in both the NASCAR O’Reilly Series and Cup series have become increasingly rare.

Kvapil took the lead briefly off the start but was then swallowed by William Byron and Corey Day. While Day pulled away from Byron and Kvapil, the two were left battling as the field caught up. On lap two, Josh Bilicki spun down the apron, and the caution flag flew just moments before the Kvapil’s No. 1 was seen flipping through the air.

Kvapil got loose and was hit by Byron, then made contact with the outside wall before Parker Retzlaff hit him in the back while crashing, exposing Kvapil's car’s underbelly and sending it flipping.

Kvapil talked with The CW Sports following being released from the care center.

"I actually didn't think it was going to flip over like that, but once I started doing that, it didn't really seem too bad," Kvapil said of his flip. "My biggest thing is I just hated for this whole number one Bass Pro shops team, Rodney and these guys, they brought a really fast race car, and it was just hoping to get through the first couple laps and get kind of sorted out and kind of fall in line, and we didn't really get to that point."

This early caution came after the cancellation of practice and qualifying on Friday due to storms in the area.

The race was red-flagged for 12 minutes and restarted on lap 28, following 25 laps under caution.

Victoria Beaver is a nomadic sports writer who spends her time hopping between race tracks and hippie farms. She’s covered every corner of motorsports that will let her in from 410 Sprints to NASCAR to Supercross. Her daily driver is a 2010 Subaru that she refused to do the smallest amount of preventative maintenance on. Instead, she spends her free time and money building a 42-foot Skoolie to one day travel the country full time.