Ryan Newman's crash near the finish line at the Daytona 500 in February had many fearing the worst, but his recovery has been remarkable and he is cleared and ready to race. As NASCAR was announcing the second installment of their return to racing schedule, Newman was speaking with 247 Sports regarding his excitement for himself and the sport in general.

Like with most sports around the world, the NASCAR season was paused due to health concerns regarding the coronavirus pandemic. NASCAR is one of the first sports to return, though they will do so without fans and with modified qualifying and pit selections.

NASCAR's return is a two-fold return for Newman, who will return to competition for the first time since his accident that left him with a bruised brain, as the sport returns to the track amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Newman said:

"I'm super excited, not just for myself but for our sport. I think our sport will help lead by example of how to get the world, if not the United States, back on track and enjoy some of the things that we love and give people some of that normalcy back that we haven't had for a couple months here."

When the crash occurred, Newman was expected to miss many races while he recovered, but the stoppage resulted in him only missing three thus far.

Since the race, Newman has been outspoken about what he calls a "miracle" recovery, leaving the hospital under his own power less than 48 hours after he was pulled from his vehicle.

"Every layer [of the crash] had multiple miracles that allowed me to walk out with my daughters," he said. 

Despite how impressive his recovery has been, there are many moments of it he doesn't remember.

"That's the part, for me, that makes me feel how special it was — the miracle part of it. I don't remember anything about being in the hospital. ... but I do remember putting my arms around my daughters' chests and walking out and holding their hands as I did that. And that tells me that God was involved," he said.

Continuing he said, "That tells me that I was blessed in more ways than one, and makes me so thankful for what I went through, and being able to have people around me that I love and trust afterwards. I don't know how to describe it more than that. I feel like a complete walking miracle."

Since the crash, he has been working on more than just his own recovery and has been helping NASCAR with safety input. 

"I have had some input post-2020 Daytona 500. Not a lot, but they've talked to me about some things," Newman said. "They've worked with the team at Roush Fenway Racing to help devise some new things with the race car 

Newman is known for helping to improve the cars to be as safe as possible and one of the elements of the car that helped save his life is known as the "Newman bar." 

"I would love to take all the credit, but I don't deserve all the credit when it comes to things from the past like the Newman Bar. That was NASCAR's development over a crash that I had had," Newman explained. "I flipped and landed upside down, and my cage crushed a significant amount. They realized that they needed to make an improvement, they made it and they called it the Newman Bar. I was literally just the crash test dummy that lived through it."

Newman is expected to race on Sunday in NASCAR's return at the Darlington Raceway.