[MOWA]

Thankfully, things turned out as well as could be imagined given the circumstances. Not to diminish the injuries suffered by Critter's crew members, which we understand to be broken shoulder blades, but things could have been much worse. Hearing the words "People are hurt in the pits. We need ambulances to the pits" on the radio after an accident hits pretty hard. We hope for a full and speedy recovery for the crew members that were injured.

Yes. It was a very different kind of night at Peoria. The day was sunny with not much of a chance of rain and right when we started the driver's meeting a huge storm/rain hit. We pressed forward and got the track ran in, then sure enough here comes more rain without hardly a cloud in the sky.

This was our first occasion in dealing with what you might call a serious incident in our short two years of existence and it is a reminder of how serious we must continue to be regarding the safety of everyone at the track. As a young series we are fortunate to have a fair amount of our own safety equipment and our own safety coordinator that travels with us, but incidents like this make you think of other things you could be doing.

One thing that strikes me as something that a series or local track sometimes overlook is communication with the Ambulance/EMT crew. Usually the firemen are quick to respond, but often the ambulance is left without communication with officials to know when they are needed and where. At some tracks they are kept in a corner or otherwise obstructed from a full view of the track. Everyone leaves to go attend to an accident and can leave the ambulance crew behind without a way to receive direction. If the ambulance isn't going to carry a track/series radio, make sure someone is designated to stay in contact with them so they know when and where to roll. They are the ones who have radios to call for additional assistance when needed as well.

To answer another question, Andy is Gary Baugh's son.

As with any incident, there's a lot to learn from it and we have spent a lot of time evaluating how it occurred and how best to deal with things in the future. To some extent we have the feeling that we dodged a bullet with this one, even though there were injuries that could be considered somewhat serious. Best wishes to all with their recovery.