ROUGEMONT, NC — 15-year-old Lucas Jones walked away from a violent crash on lap 92 of Saturday night’s Orange Blossom 300 at Orange County Speedway.
Jones’ car careened into the outside wall at the track’s first turn at a high rate of speed. The collision was so powerful, it actually shook the grandstands in turn one like an earthquake, according to fans attending the race. Despite the impact, Jones walked away from the wreck unharmed.
What's left of Lucas Jones' car. pic.twitter.com/MrH0iH1lWL
— RACE22.com (@race22) April 19, 2015
Jones, who said he had no concussion symptoms after the accident, said he was physically okay after the race. His car, however, was destroyed.
“We’re okay for the most part,” Jones said. “The racecar, we can always get that fixed up. You know, we were coming down the frontstretch and the 57 just put us in the wall going in the corner. He was arching it in a lot all night. I don’t know if he was trying to get a better arch in so he could get off. I know he was loose off, I don’t know. Maybe he was loose the whole corner all night.”
Moments after the accident, Jones was already looking ahead to the next race despite having just climbed out of the car after the hardest collision he has ever made with a barrier in his racing career.
“It’s not good. We’re going to send the chassis back,” Jones stated. “We still don’t know if the motor’s okay. We still a lot of work to be done to get it ready for the next race.”
When the race was red flagged so someone could be transported to a nearby medical center for observation, many on pit road assumed that it was Jones. The driver who was transported was Canadian racer Dominique Van Wieringen – which was confirmed to RACE22.com late Saturday evening by her race team.
Van Wieringen dominated in the early stages of the race but, shortly after lap 40, Christopher Bell reeled her in to take the lead. Shortly after surrendering the lead, Van Wieringen’s car erupted in flames and smoke.
“So it was a crazy night tonight,” Van Wieringen said in a Facebook post early Sunday morning. “We started off the race strong and even lead about 30 laps. Was saving tires for the end of the race before we had a mechanical problem that resulted in a fire. I inhaled a lot of smoke so I’m in the hospital to make sure everything is all right. I should be good to go for next weekend.”
Christopher Bell went on to score the victory over Bubba Pollard and Kyle Grissom.