LAKEVILLE, Conn. — Driver Thomas Annunziata was transported to an area medical facility for further evaluation after a fire broke out on his Tricon Garage No. 1 Toyota during Saturday’s Craftsman Truck Series race at Lime Rock Park, NASCAR officials announced.
RELATED: Race results | At-track photos
Annunziata was running second in Saturday’s LiUNA 150 when flames flew from under the hood of his No. 1 Toyota during a Lap 79 caution period. He stopped his truck in the grass near the pit entrance, and he exited under his own power before the AMR Safety Team arrived to assist him.
NASCAR competition officials confirmed the 21-year-old remained awake and alert.
Tricon No. 1 crew chief Jerame Donley said post-race that the team would conduct a thorough investigation into what sparked the issue, saying that an initial inspection in the garage failed to show a definitive root cause.
“We honestly don’t know,” Donley told NASCAR.com. “It’s kind of chicken or the egg. There’s a lot of stuff that’s melted under there, a lot of stuff got hot. We’ll get back to the shop and try to dissect it and figure out what happened. Obviously, there’s been some alternator issues throughout the field. We had one at San Diego. I think the 34 (Front Row Motorsports team) had a couple issues today. The 9 (of race winner Grant Enfinger) had an issue. Just seems like maybe there’s some issues going on that we don’t know about yet, and we’ve got to get back to the shop and dissect it. So unfortunately, don’t have the short, quick answer right now.”
Annunziata was making just the second start of his Craftsman Truck Series career, and both efforts have come at the 1.478-mile circuit. He was a winner in Friday’s ARCA Menards Series race at Lime Rock for the second consecutive year.
Annunziata had been a solid top-five runner throughout the 100-lap race’s first half, but his No. 1 truck caught some damage in a Lap 51 restart melee. After a shift in strategy, Annunziata regained his lost ground and challenged late-race leader Gio Ruggiero for the top spot before he was sidelined.
Annunziata ranks second in the ARCA Menards Series standings, and though his experience in NASCAR’s national tours is limited — 18 O’Reilly Auto Parts Series starts, plus the pair of Truck Series efforts here — Annunziata was making the most of his opportunity, Donley said.
“It looked like we were probably going to be in a pretty good spot racing Gio, and I felt like we had a better truck than Gio if we could just be patient and execute and not drive over our heads,” Donley said. “I thought we had a really good shot at it. Our road-course program has been really good this year. Unfortunately, we’ve got three 29th-place finishes and nothing really to show for it. But Thomas did a really good job, and I thought he did a really good job yesterday and had a lot of momentum coming into today. He’s got a lot of laps around this place. He’s probably the most comfortable here, and I thought we were going to be in a good spot, but for whatever reason, it wasn’t meant to be today.”
Contributing: Staff reports