By LARRY OTT
Both winged Sprint Car driver Cale Thomas and Raceland (formerly Freedom NY. Motorsports Park) chief flagman John Veach, were both highly blessed to have avoided serious injury or worse following a harrowing accident during the NAPA All-Star Circuit of Champions 35-lap A-Main there last Friday night.
On lap 5, Thomas was coming out of the fourth turn and down the frontstretch when his Sprint Car began to violently barrel roll getting airborne striking the flag stand which at the time was manned by Veach.
The race was immediately placed in red flag condition.
The fuel cell also separated from the back of Thomas’s car and landed on the track. A few minutes later Thomas emerged from his destroyed Sprint Car uninjured. Veach resumed his flagging duties, also suffering no issues from the incident.
“I never saw the car coming,” Veach said. “All that I know is by the time I saw the car it struck my flag stand and shook it. I also got sprayed with few drops of the fuel from the tank.
“I am fine. In fact, since the accident my cell phone has been blowing up with people who saw the accident on Flo Racing and are trying to reach me to make sure that I’m okay.”
Veach is a veteran flagger and has filled that role for many different race tracks and series over the last several years.
Friday’s incident at Raceland is the second time in recent years that a flag stand has been struck by race cars in Western New York. A few seasons ago in a Race of Champions Modified Series race at Holland Speedway a pair of Modifieds got airborne and collided with the flag stand manned by John Nelson and Steve Kellogg.
Kellogg quickly grabbed Nelson to prevent him from falling off the flag stand and onto the active race track into the path of oncoming cars. Thankfully for both men they suffered minor scrapes and bruises but nothing worse.
For Thomas, of Fairland, Ind, what started out as a promising evening of Sprint Car racing at Raceland turned into a disaster. He came into the Raceland event second in All-Star points trailing Kalib Henry by just 31 points.
Thomas started the Raceland A-Main fourth and by lap four was running third with Henry leading. Thomas appeared to be making great progress toward the front of the field when he suddenly got out of shape in the fourth turn on lap 4 and lost several positions.
The next lap while trying to scramble back up through the field disaster struck when his violent accident occurred.
“I thought I was going to run the bottom and I ran the top behind another car and it made me get tight and I did a wheelie and I just kind of got sideways and Cody (Bova) was there,” Thomas said.
“I kept it off the wall. I lost so much ground and I felt like something was kind of wrong. I couldn’t see and I don’t know on the next lap if something broke but it turned out unfortunate with the accident suddenly happening.”
Henry went on to win the race over the 12 car, A-Main starting field while Thomas was credited with 11th place. Henry left Raceland leading the All-Star points over Thomas by 41 (995-554).
“There’s not that many cars here tonight,” Thomas reasoned. “I’m obviously trying to get the team points but the driver points don’t pay anything so it doesn’t really bother me much. I just want to win races and finish races.”
Thomas emerged triumphant in the most recent All-Star event before Raceland winning at Butler Speedway August 22.
“Yes, we won recently at Butler and honestly I was on tap to win tonight so this sucks for my guys,” Thomas said. “They’re really good to me and I don’t know but we’re going to have to go home. We don’t have a spare car here
“So, we’re going to have to go home before the race at Sharon (Ohio) Speedway tomorrow night and figure that out. We can’t rebuild this car that was in the accident here tonight. That chassis is done.”