Panthers star Olsen gets taste of NASCAR drama
Matt DiBenedetto wanted to scare Carolina Panthers tight end Greg Olsen on Wednesday, but he didn’t plan to scare himself at the same time.
Olsen, the honorary pace car driver for Saturday’s NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race, was getting an instructional pace car ride from DiBenedetto when the pair suddenly noticed a giant obstacle in their way.
A miscommunication between Charlotte Motor Speedway workers meant the backstretch gate was left open and blocking part of the car’s path, and DiBenedetto had to swerve around it after he’d already reached 100 mph.
“We were just chitchatting and I was explaining a few things, and we saw the gate was open on the entire backstretch,” the Sprint Cup driver said. “A slight obstacle. I’m glad we caught it there at the last second, or else it probably wouldn’t have been good.”
Olsen said the 120-mph ride with DiBenedetto was an eyeopener.
“That’s way more stressful than I anticipated,” Olsen said. “I kept looking over, and he’s like talking and giving me all these pointers, and he’s got one hand on the wheel. I was like, ‘What are you doing? Aren’t you going to put two hands on the wheel?’ He’s like, ‘No, yeah, we’re good. We usually go about 80 mph faster.’
“I was like, ‘Well you know, I don’t need to do that today. Just show me how we pit.’ ”
Olsen, who attended his first All- Star Race last year, has long shown his support for NASCAR. He worked out with the Hendrick Motorsports pit crew this week and expressed his enthusiasm for the sport in general.
“I have a lot of respect and a lot of appreciation for other people who do things at a very high level,” he said. “Just getting a little taste of how fast they’re going and the coordination you have to have — they go right up on the wall. It is just a pretty incredible thing.”