By David Morgan, Associate Editor
SAN DIEGO – There are crashes and then there are crashes like the one that took place during Saturday’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race on the temporary street course around Naval Base Coronado.
On a restart on lap 36, the field charged into Turn 1 when Sam Mayer clipped the inside wall separating the racing surface from pit road, ricocheting him back out into traffic before he slammed into the outside wall in Turn 2, moving the wall several feet in the process as chaos ensued behind him.
When all was said and done, some 25 cars were involved, some of which were able to continue on in the race, while others were written off for the day, leaving their teams to have to load up their beaten and battered cars and make the long trip back to North Carolina.
The incident would trigger a red flag to repair the barrier that Mayer, Alfredo, and others slammed into, with the stoppage lasting 43 minutes and 10 seconds as track officials worked to bring in new sections of both wall and fencing to secure the area for the remainder of the race.
“I have to be one of the worst race car drivers to ever touch the sport. I’m so sorry,” Mayer radioed to his team as he sat in disbelief in his car following the massive hit.
After getting checked and released from the Infield Care Center, Mayer was extremely remorseful for triggering the crash, vowing to apologize to every driver and team involved.
“First off, I want to say sorry to everybody in the field. I’m looking at the list of everybody involved in the crash and it’s literally everybody. Just, sorry to all the people that have to put work in now because of my mistake,” Mayer said.
“Yeah, just brutal. Definitely hate that for everybody. The Audibel Chevy was really good today…and what am I doing?” he added as he watched the replay.
“I’ve got to be better. I’ve got to be a lot better. I’m going to learn from this. I’m going to be better. Gotta stay locked in no matter what happens to you. Just keep moving forward, you know?
“Gonna sleep this one off, but gotta be better in the future.”
More angles of the crash. https://t.co/KMsZWge1wz pic.twitter.com/WvQKR7124C
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Mayer noted that the entire crash stemmed from him trying to get a little too aggressive on the restart, with him again apologizing to all involved in the melee.
“It’s just the visuals are hard here. With not having an inside catch fence, it’s hard to see the inside wall when you’re following people. Just not putting my car in the right place unfortunately,” Mayer explained.
“I was conservative all day with that and I knew that it was getting down to crunch time and I had to be a little more aggressive on restarts to not get put three-wide. I felt like I was going to have a pretty decent run because the 99 didn’t have that good of a restart, so we were going to be there.
“I just got a little too aggressive and it bit me today and obviously got everyone else involved, so I hate it for everybody involved. Hate it for these Haas Factory boys.
“I’m going to have to go around the whole garage and apologize. That’s never a fun feeling.”
Race winner Austin Hill explained that the incident should not fall completely on Mayer’s shoulders, with the corner layout lending itself to an incident like this being almost inevitable to happen at some point during this weekend.
“Everyone’s going to give him crap for it, right? That he hit the inside wall,” said Hill. “You cannot see Turn 1 when you’re lined up on the inside lane, all you are is following the guy right in front of you. I actually almost hit the inside wall because all I was doing was following him. And you cannot see…the wall is so short sitting in the race car, you can’t see the corner. You have no idea where the wall’s at.
“So, I was surprised that it hasn’t happened sooner.”
Anthony Alfredo was one of the 25 drivers involved and took the brunt of the crash along with Mayer, coming out of the care center hobbled a bit, but still in good spirits after the incident.
“I’m fine, thankfully. That was by far the biggest hit of my entire life by a mile and I’ve hit pretty hard a few times,” said Alfredo.
“Just knocked the wind out of me and I banged both my legs up a little bit. My left’s pretty sore. The Infield Care Center did a great job helping me out there, I just had a little trouble getting out of the race car.
“Sam apologized to me in there, so I guess it was his fault. That’s a mess…That Chevrolet was flying today. I’m glad if we had to have a big wreck like that, it was at the front racing for the win and not in the back.
“It just sucks to not see that through. That’s one of the best race cars I’ve ever driven. Being competitive on a road course is something I’ve been working towards for a long time and it was really fun seeing my efforts pay off to be competitive and go toe to toe with some of the better guys.”
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