texasprd Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 In 40+ years of going to the races (as a spectator and as a bracket racer), I've seen some weird stuff. I'll bet most of you have, too. I saw Doc Halliday blow the body off his Telstar funny car when he ran over the finish-line lights at Alamo Dragway at the NHRA meet in '86. I saw several cars pile into, and on top of, the back-straight gate at Highway 16 (requiring a long removal and repair process - I think it was a full-moon night, too). I saw a race leader at New Smyrna beach get turned sideways on a restart and take out four catch fence poles when he got up on the front-straight wall (and scared the living daylights out of everybody in the first three rows). But JPM vs The Jet Dryer is about the weirdest I've seen. How about y'all? Share the weirdest you've ever seen at the track... On edit: Oops - almost forgot about the "Top Fuel bracket race" between Jody Smart and Don Garlits at Alamo Dragway (followed by the Jody Smart vs The Christmas Tree slam-down) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HiTech Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 Bruce Beddoe hitting the pit opening retaining wall head on at speed at cc one night ...this wall has packed dirt .concrete and more ...it should never move ....ten feet or so where bruce hit was a light pole ..he hit that wall so hard that pole wobbled and hit i cant remember his name in the head and knocked him out . someone has video of it ............. ..AS for j.p.m .........makes one wonder if there is going to be a penalty ...and what rules will be changed over this .. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
racer61 Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 ..AS for j.p.m .........makes one wonder if there is going to be a penalty ...and what rules will be changed over this .. Penalty for what? They already determined he wasnt going too fast around safety vehicles, and was in the correct line. It was a one in a million chance that it would happen. His car just broke at the exact worse time. I bet the only thing Nascar can do is set a speed for cars while safety crews are on track. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thumper Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 Any improvements to safty in this case should be adressed to the fuel storage for the jet dryer,prehaps a lighter load and some kind of fuel cell.The accident was not the big issue.it was the fuel leak. One of the wierdest things I have seen was at Almeda Speedway around 1970.In the super stock race all the fast cars had crashed out of the feature.There was a 1958 Ford that always ran with a couple of cyls dead and he won the feature.He was so excited he lost control at the start/finish line,went into the infield and ran up on one of the dirt hills used for motorcross and rolled upside down in slow motion.It was funny because this driver would have done it again for a feature win.Fact is anybody can win given the right cirumstances.Kind of like the trucks and Nationwide cars at Daytona.Never give up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
REBELRACER Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 i agree racer61. that was a one in a million freak accident. just glad nobody was injured or worse. that was a wicked scary deal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fast18 Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 I remember Chris Wilson going over the wall in her Hobby Stock and driving around to the pit entrance minutes later. Also saw Junior Medlock drive straight over a wheel that had come off someones car and was rolling down the back straight @ LHS. Front wheels went up and the rears went up and he just kept driving like nothing ever happened. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HiTech Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 ..AS for j.p.m .........makes one wonder if there is going to be a penalty ...and what rules will be changed over this .. Penalty for what? They already determined he wasnt going too fast around safety vehicles, and was in the correct line. It was a one in a million chance that it would happen. His car just broke at the exact worse time. I bet the only thing Nascar can do is set a speed for cars while safety crews are on track. i was being sarcastic...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvfd_gordo Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 Johnny White at CCS jumping turn 1 wall clip a light pole and almost land completely on a trailer in the pits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwmbishop Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 They haven't penalized Juan after he has (one at a time) wrecked half the field so why would they penalize him for wrecking a jet drier? If NASCAR allows Juan to be satisfied with diversionary targeting, it may keep his competitors off the wrecker... When I was 11 or so at South Bay I saw a wreck in the front stretch take down the starter stand. The flag man leaped down the fence line and left was clinging to the fence like a cat in a tree as the flagpole (old glory and all) came down across 10 rows of seats - about 6 seats over from where I was sitting. They moved the flagpole after that. One night at the OLD irwindale, half way through the main, Ed Hale took out a power pole in the infield, which pulled down the next, and then the next until the fifth and final one - which held the transformer. The whole place went immediately dark, half the field saw the flagman (who just KNEW power was going out) frantically waving the red the other half had no clue until playing dodge em cars in the dark! But on the "bright side", what with all the sparks and explosions for a few seconds the back stretch resembled the backstretch of Daytona after the July race! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
racer61 Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 i was being sarcastic...... Oh, my bad. On another note. Waaaaay back in the day, I remember watching Don Chrudimsky get tangled up with another car (cant remember which) and take down the flag stand at what was then, Austin speed-o-rama. Kinda scary for the flag men. I was still a little guy so I didnt know how serious it was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobby Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 I remember Chris Wilson going over the wall in her Hobby Stock and driving around to the pit entrance minutes later. A Limited Mod driver did that at Battleground just this last year. One of the light poles there has also been taken out a couple of times. I was there for one of them, which took out ALL the track lighting. After about ten minutes, the announcer came on and asked if anyone had any lineman's spikes in their truck. Apparently someone did, thirty minutes later the lights were on again. Houston Raceway Park has had some odd happenings over the years. One night Willie Veach (Jr.?) did some superb driving to hold off the best modifieds our area has in a cliff-hanger win. As everyone settled back and breathed a sigh of relief, he crossed the finished line, hit a rut in the top of turn one and did an end over end flip into the wall. The blooper that will probably never be topped happened one year at the Texas Grand, the big end of the year race. The event trophies that year were sponsored by Baytown Ford, and mid-event the company representative and a track worker went down and set out the trophies for display in the vicinity of Victory Lane, at the edge of the infield. Just a couple of races later a bomber driver coming out of turn four spun into the infield, cutting a wide swath through those sitting-duck trophies. I think we were all torn between wanting to laugh at the farce and feel sorry for the saleslady sponsor, who was devastated. The first track improvement we noticed the next year was a cement divider at that location.... One year at the HRP drag strip's NHRA event there was a police woman standing in the staging lanes when a funny car was accidentally started while in gear, and lurched forward. The body was up and she fell into the chassis, just in front of the engine. They eventually got it shut down, but meanwhile she was lying there while the engine revved. It's hard to guess the real consequences. It was a horrible situation, but even so it could have been so much worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigracer93 Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 I saw a guy at Shady Oaks take out the camera man while flying through the infield... Nobody knew why he was in the infield to start with... For a scary situation everybody had a good laugh after it was over... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HiTech Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 Johnny White at CCS jumping turn 1 wall clip a light pole and almost land completely on a trailer in the pits. did your heart stop beating like the rest of us did ..bad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HiTech Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 I saw a guy at Shady Oaks take out the camera man while flying through the infield... Nobody knew why he was in the infield to start with... For a scary situation everybody had a good laugh after it was over... A NEWS CAMERA MAN WAS NAILED AT CC WHILE TAKING PIC,S OF A SLIDE FOR LIFE DEMO ..HE WAS TOLD NOT TO BE IN THAT AREA WHEN THE CAR CAME THROUGH THE FIRE ..HE FLEW UP ABOUT 20 FEET AND BROKE BOTH LEGS IN MANY PLACE'S UGLY.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Radical Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 One night at Corpus Christi Speedway I was in the pits by the scales. I think pratice was still going on. I heard tires squealling like they were locked up and the engine was reved as high as it would go. As I was trying to figure out what all that noise was I saw Larry Smiths car come flying over the turn 3 wall and land between the wall and some pilings holding up the banking. Another night Donnie Yocum Jr. landed his car on top of turn two. And another night during the race a caution came out. As I was going down the backstretch I could see where a section of the wall was missing. Someone had gone through the wall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RBSF Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 Was foam used on that jet fuel and I just missed it? Does NASCAR not have/use foam? Was is a concious choice to use dry chem to keep water off the infield? Did the fire response seem timely or kinda slow? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwmbishop Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 Announcers are usually the best source for off the wall entertainment. An example. Bob Hickey, Jerry Gay, Mike Carver, Steve Bush and Daryl Eaton were five of the ten best street stock drivers at Cajon. The competition was usually very exiting - even to the point of having Tom McGrath - the voice of Cajon Speedway - sometimes at a loss for words. One night especially - there were 5 lead changes between three drivers in the last 7 laps of the main - and the finish had the top five all in two car lengths of each other finishing two wide at the front and three wide behind. And as Tom said it - "At the Checkers for tonite's street stock main we have Hickey, Carver, Eaton, Gay, Bush". Dead silence for a full 15 seconds. Followed by uproarious laughter that carried all the way through the rest of the night as chuckles and giggles erupted for no real reason.... and I was unusually glad that my buddy Rick Bogart, Mike Weed and Brian Pusey were in the NEXT five. Could have REALLY shaken things up a bit... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PAPosse Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 NY State Fairgrounds, Syracuse, NY. Pileup on the backstretch with a huge fire. Tighe Scott catches some serious air. Wayne Reutimann (Buzzie's Brother, David's Uncle) says later something told him to duck. Scott's car sheers off the roof and roll cage of Wayne's car. We couldn't see much from the stands, but you could hear a pin drop when the brought the car around. This was the 1977 race which was delayed until early 1978 due to weather. I remember riding with my dad to the track while the snow was falling. Dixie Speedway, Woodstock, GA - In the early 90s, I went to an All-Star Sprint Car race. A car flipped in turn 4 and got stuck in the catch fence......with the nose of the car pointing straight up to the sky. It took awhile to get the driver out and untangle it from the fencing. I have some pictures - I'll see if I can find them. Weedsport Speedway, NY - Pits are outside of turn 1. Car gets flat tire and given two laps to change it before the field goes back to green. As the cars enter turn 4 for the restart a roar of a single engine echoes from the pits, the green flag waves, 20+ other mods roar to life, looking toward turn 1 the car that pitted launches off of the pit access road over the banking and spins to a stop pointing toward the pits...just as the field passes the flaggers stand the driver hits the gas and the car launches back into the pit area. Orange County Fair Speedway, Middletown, NY - Buzzie Reutimann taking down about 100 feet of catch fence on the front straight when the flagman threw the green, then turned on the yellow lights before the cars ever reached the flagstand. Buzzie was at about mid-pack...when the field slowed in front of him. I've seen flagstands taken down, and lights taken out, water trucks run into, pacecars hit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwmbishop Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 Was foam used on that jet fuel and I just missed it? Does NASCAR not have/use foam? Was is a concious choice to use dry chem to keep water off the infield? Did the fire response seem timely or kinda slow? I tried to be critical of them - but the response was actually very favorable. Given the HUGE volume of heat present and the steep angle causing them to fight the fire from below - they got closer than I would have expected. Especially holding the pressure end of the hose. Although the first response was dry chem and a couple of water bottles, it was well foamed once the facility truck arrived, seemed like at least two minutes but reality was probably more like 25 seconds. They pushed the flame up hill to the fire and kept what was below on the apron from flashing - layed the foam low (from three hoses) and were being helped by dry chem high - not sure that was super effective but it did seem to make "holes" in which to push the burning fuel. A couple of the wide angle shots really showed how hot it was - the vortex was at least 150 ft high and fully wrapped. The only thing I could see that may have shortened the fight is to have foam applied from OUTSIDE the wall... foam is most effective when applied from above. Rather hard to smother from underneath! But this was a very unusual situation as most fires end up lower on the track - very rare to have to fight uphill like that. But after watching blown engine and crashes making flame as easy as they now do (70 psi fuel on electric main pump) - I think ALL tracks may want to brush up a bit on readiness. Fires WILL be more likely now. I like the way they have it setup with two pumps - one mechanical pumps to a small reservoir, the small res supplies the main electrical pump and injectors. That way the fuel spill volume is limited to the amount in reservoir even if the car stops and ignition stays on... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tps48 Posted February 29, 2012 Report Share Posted February 29, 2012 i agree racer61. that was a one in a million freak accident. just glad nobody was injured or worse. that was a wicked scary deal Sorry but you need spellcheck," That was a JUAN in a million freak accident!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HiTech Posted February 29, 2012 Report Share Posted February 29, 2012 i agree racer61. that was a one in a million freak accident. just glad nobody was injured or worse. that was a wicked scary deal Sorry but you need spellcheck," That was a JUAN in a million freak accident!" your a funny guy ............... HOW MANY REMEMBER THE BIG FIRE AT SA ..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
debwill Posted February 29, 2012 Report Share Posted February 29, 2012 I remember the big SAS fire. Mike Meeks was one of the drivers involved, I think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1275th Posted February 29, 2012 Report Share Posted February 29, 2012 I am suprised nobody mentioned the time at HiWay 16 when the car turned around coming out of 4 during practice and slid backwards into to wrecker parked along the front straight as the guy in the wrecker bailed out the passenger door. The other I'll always remember from TV is the lates 90s I believe, when the ARCA race went yellow and as the pace car was waiting for the field to come around he got hit from behind. Sortened the back of the Grand Prix up about 2 or 3 feet. The 2 officials in the pace looked a little stunned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nightmoves 99 Posted February 29, 2012 Report Share Posted February 29, 2012 Once at Gator my son was driving his limited mod running around 4-5th when a car lost its axle..wheel and all, it was sitting in the middle of the track when my son ran over it.. I saw the axle ,which was pointing toward cockpit by now lift car in the air which then landed on all fours ..never breaking stride..he pulled into the pits wondering "what the he...???"was that!! Another time in Corpus we were helping a good friend with his super late model when someone was airing up tires and forgot to release the air chuck...the resulting explosion was so loud and forceful it bent the steel braces in the hauler (pretty sure the wheel hit it) many people thought we were under attack from somewhere!!! Never boring!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
txtom Posted February 29, 2012 Report Share Posted February 29, 2012 Does anyone else realize that Montoya only needs four more Jet Dryer kills to become Colombia's First Ace.....? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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