Not-so-better days: Denny Hamlin's Vegas car fire

Over this past weekend, Denny Hamlin managed to upstage Nascar golden boy Jimmie Johnson at the Tums Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway as part of the current Nascar Sprint Cup chase series. Yeah, Hamlin's probably not going to win the championship this year (my prediction is Mr. Johnny Obvious aka Jimmie Johnson--look at the points advantage!), but still it's a career-highlight victory that stakes his claim as one of Nascar's stars. But while most drivers have their moments of brilliance, they usually also have at least a few moments in their career they'd rather forget and Denny Hamlin's just one of the many who've had a light brush with death. Today's video clip is just one of those scenarios.

This video is from a Nascar Nationwide race from earlier this year in Las Vegas. The clip cuts right to the chase and shows Denny Hamlin (in the No. 20 car) breaking a tire and getting entangled with Mike Bliss (cool name, eh?) and the car catches fire. Shortly the flames extinguish to only smoke, but still that's got to be a scary situation. The video follows up with the cleanup as well as multiple angles of the accident, and you can get the best look at the No. 20 car's combustion about the 2:15 mark.