Originally Posted by bigmojo5:
I was shooting in the first turn that awful day. I did not see the accident begin, but heard the tires skidding and the cars crashing just a few laps into the feature. and then saw McElreath's car flipping down the first turn and over the wall. My photo of debris (but not the car) flying through the air after it went over appeared in Sprint Car Pictorial. It was also my photo in Sprint Car Pictorial of him winning the Hulman Classic.
From what I remember, at least part of the cause for the fatal injuries was the bolts holding the safety harness to the cage. It was the third had flip the car had suffered that year and the theory was that the bolts were brittle from the stress of the first two crashes and snapped during this one.
Jim Morrison
Jim,
You are right. The car had been involved in three flips. I was present at all of them. The first occurred on July 2 at the Indy mile. If I remember correctly, the car left the track in the first turn, (or am I getting the McElreath accident confused with Mark Alderson's), the second was at Eldora on Oct. 9, just one week prior to his Winchester crash. I heard the same thing about the bolts breaking.