NASCAR: Fan Pulled From Burning Truck At Kentucky
There was a scary moment during the NASCAR race in Kentucky Saturday night when a pickup truck in the parking lot caught one fire. Although nobody was injured, a NASCAR fan was inside of the truck when the fire began.
The caution-filled first 100 laps in Kentucky on Saturday resulted in several cars being wrecked and sent home earlier than predicted. The NASCAR action on the track was not the only thing that caught the eye of fans, a fire in the parking lot also got plenty of attention.
The NBCSN telecast of the race showed the burning truck on a couple of occasions. The below photos from Twitter show a large grill in the bed of the truck along with what appears to be a can of gas next to it. However, PRN tweeted on Sunday that they heard that the grill was not the cause of the fire. Instead, the PRN tweet alludes to poor judgement and human error as the culprit.
Fire breaks out in @KySpeedway parking lot during Cup race: https://t.co/gBfZpbjKQH #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/KRxzhSTZ36
— Motorsport.com (@Motorsport) July 10, 2016
While it was not known at the time of the fire, a NASCAR fan was apparently inside of the cab of the truck when the fire broke out. Mark Story of the Lexington Herald-Leader talked about how the NASCAR fan had to be helped from the truck.
Ky Speedway GM Mark Simendinger says fire started in cabin of white pick up truck w person inside. Person was pulled out by track responders
— Mark Story (@markcstory) July 10, 2016
Simendinger says he believes person pulled from truck did not suffer serious injuries
— Mark Story (@markcstory) July 10, 2016
Fire did major damage to white GM truck where it started & silver Nissan car next to it. Also seared a red truck parked on other side
— Mark Story (@markcstory) July 10, 2016
Simendinger: 'I always tell our people be prepared, something weird will happen. But we never envisioned this'
— Mark Story (@markcstory) July 10, 2016
Simendinger says track first responders did 'good work' in containing fire in situation where it could have been far worsr
— Mark Story (@markcstory) July 10, 2016
In one case of burned out car, I know the person had friends at track & got a ride with them https://t.co/s6DF7S8UcT
— Mark Story (@markcstory) July 10, 2016
Thankfully the NASCAR fan inside of the truck and others in or around that area of the parking lot were not injured during the fire. The bad news obviously comes for the truck and the cars that were on either side of it as they also suffered damage.
The burnt truck pic.twitter.com/CKdgq2F8WT
— Mark Story (@markcstory) July 10, 2016
Truck & at least 1 car appear badly burned pic.twitter.com/T88qvaig9G
— Mark Story (@markcstory) July 10, 2016
Hearing now it was NOT a grill that started the truck fire! Let's say poor judgement and human error. pic.twitter.com/5oucA4XMFI
— Doug Rice (@Riceman61) July 10, 2016
Coming out of the NASCAR telecast it was widely assumed that the cause of the fire was the grill in the back of the truck. However, ABC News confirmed that the fire actually started inside of the cab of the truck.
"Track spokesman Tim Bray said firefighters at the facility and from Gallatin County put out the blaze in the speedway’s Platinum lot. Bray said the fire began in the passenger compartment of a truck and damaged a second vehicle, with a third singed. No one was injured."
must read: Five Things That We Learned From Kentucky
At the end of the day this entire situation could have been a lot worse. Thankfully, nobody was hurt and more property damage was not done. One would have to assume that the gentleman inside of the truck will have some explaining to do and could be responsible for damages to the other cars.