[Pushtruck]

I was in the scoring tower directly in front of the accident during the A-main along with the two PA announcers and scoring officials and could see the cars clearly around the entire track. The announcers were doing play by play of the racing action all the way around the track. The track had blacked over early and the sun was starting to become a visiablity problem seeing the cars coming out of turn four from my vantage in the tower. The sun was to the drivers back going down the front stretch.

Gravel had been smoking severely for two laps and it appeared the engine was giving up near turn three. He was low and slowing on the track and it appeared he was heading to the front stretch pits off turn four but had not slowed enough to turn in. There was a small fire on the left headers as he slowed going down the inside of the front stretch. It became apparent he did not have enough speed to make it to the next opening going into turn one and I heard the..."yellow, yellow, yellow" command given over the radio. Gravel's car appeared to drift away from the inside lane and into the middle groove as it slowed and came to a stop. There were cars passing his stalled car on both sides. He was impacted by some of the group of cars racing for position down the front stretch. Miranda clipped his right rear and was sent tumbling into the outside catch fence and Travis was the second to hit his stalled car. It is possible the smoke from Gravel's car at track level restricted Miranda and Travis' vision and they did not see Gravel's car in time to avoid him.

The catch fence did it's job. It consists of fencing and cables. When Miranda's car hit the fence while flipping it ripped some of the fencing off entangling it around the front end and left side of the car leaving her entire car suspended nose up in the cables and remaining fencing just past the flag stand.

It was a horrific crash to see from any angle. Under the circumstances including damage to the front stretch fence, the sanctioning body ended the event eight laps early. Everyones thoughts and concerns are with all of the drivers, families and friends of those involved.

Joe