Waltrip unhurt after fiery Happy Hour crash
By Dave Rodman, Turner Sports Interactive
August 18, 2001
6:00 PM EDT (2200 GMT)
BROOKLYN, Mich. -- Michael Waltrip was unscathed Saturday afternoon in a scary looking fiery accident that occurred only minutes into the final 45-minute Happy Hour practice for Sunday's Pepsi 400 presented by Meijer at Michigan International Speedway.
The teams had only been on the race track for about three minutes when the control tower called for a caution. Waltrip's No. 15 Chevrolet had turned around in Turn 4 of the two-mile oval and slammed into the wall driver's side first.
The car burst into flames, with an apparent small explosion at about the time the car came to a halt. It burned for a number of seconds before Waltrip, who was wearing the HANS device pushed out the passenger-side window and began scrambling out.
By the time he was halfway out the window, the first safety worker had arrived on the scene to assist him. By that time, Dale Earnhardt, Inc. teammate Steve Park had parked his No. 1 Chevrolet at the bottom of the 18-degree banking and was halfway out of his car, ready to lend assistance to his mate.
The remainder of the cars on the track had stopped behind Park's car to allow the safety crews to go to work extinguishing the fire.
"The car just got loose, spun and hit the wall," said Waltrip, who had turned the 17th best lap, an average of 179.247 mph, before he crashed. "I'm OK."
"When I came around the corner and I saw my friend in a crash and I saw fire, it was natural instinct to get out to try to help him," Park said after Happy Hour. "When I stopped, I could see Michael struggling to get out and my concern was the driver's window was against the wall and that he might have been tangled in something.
"Nowadays, we all wear the HANS or something, and our seats are bigger, so I didn't know if he was caught up in something or not. The safety crew did a fine job, I just could see Michael struggling so I wanted to help. By the time I got unhooked and started to get out of my car, he was clear."
DEI pulled out Waltrip's back-up car and he got back on the track with just under 10 minutes remaining in practice, which was extended five minutes until 4:30 p.m. ET. He didn't better his time and will have to drop to the rear of the field from his seventh starting position for using his back-up car.
One other caution, for debris on the backstretch, halted practice. Rusty Wallace was fastest in practice with a lap in 39.670 seconds, 181.497 mph. Kevin Harvick, Ricky Rudd, Mark Martin and Sterling Marlin rounded out the top five in final practice.
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