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Timothy Peters Walks Away From Scary NASCAR Wreck At Texas Motor Speedway

Timothy Peters has had a rough few weeks in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.

His former team, Red Horse Racing, shut down abruptly a few weeks ago, leaving him and many others without a job. Unable to secure a ride for Dover, Peters sat on the sidelines but quickly announced a partnership with MDM Motorsports for Texas Motor Speedway Friday night.

Peters qualified 14th, just narrowly missing making the second round. He was then putting together a respectable run inside the top 10 for the team when things changed.

Following the ninth caution in the Winstaronlinegaming.com 400, the field restarted with two laps remaining. As the leaders came out of Turn 4, Austin Wayne Self lost control. Peters had nowhere to go, slamming Self. As he slid into the infield, the truck flipped, causing what was one of the worst wrecks in recent series history not on a plate track.

The damage to Peters’ truck, sitting upside down made it difficult for safety workers to remove him. But after what seemed like an eternity, Peters emerged from the infield care center, uninjured.

“Absolutely I’m fine,” he said with a small smile on his face. “It’s just a testament to NASCAR, to everyone at MDM for building me a safe race truck. I’m fine, my pride’s hurt more than anything.

“The safety crew did a great job getting the truck turned back over. They were there, Johnny on the Spot. Kudos to them; I just hate it for everybody.”

It was some terrifying wreckage that saw the No. 99 truck battered and broken apart. But despite being covered in mud, resting on its roof, Peters miraculously walked away.

Instead of the top-10 finish he had going for him, the Truck Series veteran settled for a 13th-place result. The two-race deal with MDM, despite a promising start will have to finish up with a different truck next week at Gateway Motorsports Park.

“It sucks really,” Peters said. “Shane Huffman and all the guys at MDM brought a good truck, and I’m just trying to help them with their program. Obviously, that’s not helping them with their program by bringing home a destroyed truck.

“It looked like when the No. 22 got loose, he came back to the middle of the racetrack, and I anticipated him going up the racetrack. I let off and went back to the throttle, and he came back in front of us. After that, it was just… hold on. But thanks to everybody here that gave me an opportunity. Metabo Power Tools coming on board, they’re such great people and I wanted to get them a little better finish than that ending.”

When the yellow flag flew for the incident, NASCAR determined the leaders had already taken the white flag. Christopher Bell was declared the Truck Series victor at Texas over Chase Briscoe after video review.

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3 Comments
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rg72

If not for the grass this truck may not have flipped. How many times do we have to see incidents like this for these tracks to realize they are race tracks and not golf courses? Or even innocuous spins that turn into race-ending incidents because the splitter rolls through the grass like a lawn mower and gets damaged?

Bill H.

There is a certain lack of objectivity in the writing. The truck was “battered,” but it was certainly not “broken apart.” It is complete hyperbole to say that the driver, “miraculously walked away.” These trucks are constructed to protect the driver in wrecks far worse than this one, and when the truck came to rest I had no doubt whatever that the driver would walk away.

Tom B

TP should take this as a sign. RedHorse saved a lot of money their first week not racing. Why does it take so long for a safety person to get to the seen of an accident. Count how many minutes go by before any action is taken once a race car comes to a stop. Most of the times it looks like an Asian fire drill. Almost always the fireman can’t get the extinguishers to work right.