NASCAR driver Carl Edwards crash had his car spinning out of control during his final lap at the Talladega Speedway, injuring seven fans in the process. The crash managed to flip Edwards and his No. 99 Claritin Ford in the Sprint Cup Series race yesterday causing a rather serious NASCAR wreck.
Carl Edwards’ crash launched several pieces of the wreckage into the crowd injuring at least seven fans, two females of which were airlifted to avoid heavy traffic and hospitalized. One suffered from what appeared to be a broken jaw and was treated at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Medical Center.
The other fan was sent to the hospital for an unidentified “medical issue” not related to Carl Edwards’ crash. The remaining six were treated at the track’s infield care center where drivers are sent with their injuries.
Edwards managed to survive the Talladega crash. His car flipped at over 15 feet into the crowd’s protective fence, and neither he, nor anyone in the crowd, sustained any serious injuries. The track’s medical director, Dr. Bobby Lewis, calls the crowd’s injuries minor saying that they were “mostly bumps, bruises, contusions and possible fractures.”
The collision involved Brad Keselowski and Dale Earnhardt Jr. The incident fired up with the finish line in sight with Edward’s in the lead when he and Keselowski sped past Ryan Newman and Earnhardt. When Edwards attempted to block Keselowski’s move ahead, the move sent his car flipping over Newman’s hood and into the protective fence. Keselowski managed to pull through Edward’s crash and sped on to win the race.
When Edward’s car’s stopped flipping, he jumped out his window and ran across the finish line.
“If we would have run all races without a single lap of contact, everyone in the media center would have wrote about how boring of a race it was, and instead we ran one of the best races you could ever watch on TV with full contact the whole time. Thankfully, no one did get seriously injured, and I do want to emphasize that—I’m thankful for that,” says Keselowski of the race at Talladega.
Carl Edwards’ crash was one of three that occurred on Sunday. In lap seven, there was a 13 car pile-up, followed by another 10 car pile-up. Fortunately, no drivers or people in the stands were hurt in either of these crashes.
NASCAR is investigating the track to decide whether any additional safety precautions should be made at the speedway.
Our Take:
Keselowski is right. Without contact NASCAR would be boring. I doubt many of their fans would come to watch and sit under the blazing sun for long hours if all they were expecting was to watch cars race round and round the track.
NASCAR appears to have taken the correct precautions necessary, and thankfully, the protective fence did its job this time in saving many fans from larger debris that would cause life-threatening injuries.
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