There are certain things you expect to see during a NASCAR race at World Wide Technology Raceway. Cars will slide through the corners. Tires will wear out. Somebody will complain about somebody else’s driving. And, eventually, someone will probably throw a water bottle.
What you don’t generally expect is the entire pit road to become a demolition derby.
But that’s precisely what happened Saturday night during the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Nu Way 225, when a routine round of pit stops turned into something resembling an automotive version of musical chairs, except the chairs were race cars and everyone involved was losing.
The trouble started on Lap 49 as the field came to pit road under caution following the end of Stage 1.
Rajah Caruth made contact with Nicholas Sanchez near the entrance to pit road, sending both cars spinning. Sanchez’s No. 97 then went careening into Brent Crews’ No. 19, which was rather inconveniently positioned in its pit box with the crew attempting to perform the small miracle of servicing a race car at speed.
The result was chaos.
Cars piled into the melee, completely blocking pit road and leaving a collection of battered race cars scattered across the lane. Crews’ car was hit, and a couple of his crew members were caught up in the frightening incident.
Thankfully, everyone on the No. 19 team was reportedly OK.
The list of casualties when it came to stock cars, however, was rather impressive.
In addition to Caruth, Sanchez and Crews, the incident collected Harrison Burton, Anthony Alfredo, Jeremy Clements, Jeb Burton, Ryan Sieg and Patrick Starpoli. Brandon Jones also suffered major front-end damage.
That’s 10 cars involved in an incident that happened in a place where the cars were supposed to be stopping.
It was particularly painful for Jones and Caruth, both of whom are Chase drivers. There are bad places to have a problem during a playoff run. Pit road, while everyone else is also trying to stop, is very much on that list.
And this wasn’t exactly Talladega.
“I’m not sure what happened,” Burton said. “The 51 (Jeremy Clements) was right in front of me, and I was just running my lights, and he ran into the guy in front of him, who ran into the guy in front of him and it looks like I got the worst of it. We knocked the radiator out of mine, just a horrible way to end the day. Just cruising down pit road – we were going to make a big change. We were really tight.
“You get behind people and track position and that is what happens.”
The 1.25-mile Gateway oval is hardly famous for producing “The Big One.” It’s a short, flat track just west of St. Louis where drivers spend much of the evening trying to manage tires, brakes and the peculiar art of keeping the car pointed in the right direction.
Apparently, nobody told pit road.
The damage was severe enough that Sanchez, Clements and Harrison Burton were forced behind the wall. More than half the field was trapped behind the wreckage, unable to reach their pit boxes.
NASCAR had little choice but to throw the red flag while crews cleaned up the mess.
Eventually, the track was cleared and the surviving cars were allowed to complete their stops.
It was a spectacularly violent interruption to what should have been one of the most routine moments of the race.
At Gateway, the biggest accident of the night didn’t happen in Turn 1.
It happened next to the pit wall, where everyone was supposed to be slowing down.
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.
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