A race car driver was injured on Friday night when his car flipped over the track wall and landed on its wheels in the grass. Firefighters and paramedics responded to Carolina Speedway, 6335 Union Road, around 10:40 p.m. A Carolina Speedway message on Twitter identified the driver as Roger Moser. Promoter Mark Gibbons said the man has raced at the track before, but is not a weekly regular.
Carolina Speedway is a dirt track that offers about six divisions of racing on most Friday nights. Moser was racing in the open-wheel modified division, Gibbons said. GEMS paramedics said they took the driver to CaroMont Regional Medical Center.
Gibbons said when he called to check on him Saturday, Moser was awake and in good spirits. “He doesn’t have any broken bones. They’re going to keep him one more day for observation,” he said. Gibbons said the single-car wreck happened a few laps into the race. It was not in an area near spectator seats.
About 850 spectators attended Friday night’s race, plus an additional 500 in the drivers’ pit area.
Moser was unresponsive when crews first arrived at the wreckage. But he soon came around and began talking as emergency workers extracted him from the car, Gibbons said. “He went into a turn and it seems like his car went into the wall, jumped up, and shot him outside of the boundary of the track,” Gibbons said. “There’s a possibility that something malfunctioned on the car. It hasn’t been examined,” he said. He said the car the man was driving has safety equipment that came into play during the crash. “He was wearing a head and neck restraint device that probably was a big contributor to him not being hurt any worse than he was,” Gibbons said.
You can reach Wade Allen at 704-869-1828 or twitter.com/GazetteWade.
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Dirt track driver injured in wreck (updated)
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