You aren't told to take your hands off the wheel a driver can easily keep their thumbs out of the wheel by holding the wheel with the thumbs on the front of the wheel, which is what drivers are recommended to do. However the chances of breaking your thumbs or wrists in a rearward collision is very low even in indy cars you rarely see a driver take their hands off the wheel when headed toward the wall backwards. Racecars also very rarely find straight on their own as they are set up differently than a street car which will almost always find straight. There isn't necessarily a right or wrong way, but many drivers when going backward toward the wall like that would have gave the car throttle to try to get the car back into the infield in the process getting away from the wall & out of traffic. Racing series like ARCA do however recommend drivers lock the brakes & keep the wheels pointed in one direction, my guess for the reason is little to no faith in a driver being able to save the car as I stated in my last post there isn't exactly a lot of talent that comes through ARCA nowadays, apart from the new NASCAR drivers who are either trying to get extra seat time or their NASCAR license for a particular type of track. (the ARCA licenses are alot easier to get you just have to pass a rookie orientation, NASCAR licenses involve being approved on a smaller track first with the exception of road courses).
