We’re taking you to a favorite little short track of ours known as Star Speedway in Epping, New Hampshire. Located (literally) about two miles down the road from New England Dragway, it is a favorite stop of many drag racers once the program is completed on Saturdays. It is a cheap ticket and you are right up in the action, watching some fender bashing racing and even munching on a hot dog or two. In this video things got wild and the action was delivered right to the feet of the spectators (again, literally). Star is a quarter mile oval and while there are walls on the spectator of the facility, the “woods” side is open and we have seen more than our fair share of competitors head off into the wilderness.
Among the fastest cars that compete on the track are the 350 Supermodifieds. Similar to their big block cousins in virtually every way but power plant, these are thrilling machines to watch race wheel to wheel at the cozy facility. Having personally witnessed them battling before, I can tell you with 100% confidence that there was a great show in progress when that seemingly inevitable affliction for open wheel racers struck. Billy Osborne and Matt Seavey touch wheels and when that happens one of the cars is going to get the worst of it and in this case that was Matt Seavey. His car leapt up in the air and made hard contact with both the wall and the fence, ripping it down and in a frightening twist, sending a plastic drum of a trash barrel hurtling at some fans seated low in the stands.
If you want to bust the chops of the safety crew on response time, don’t. They had to wait for the field to be signaled of the incident and stopped before they shot across the track to tend to Seavey who was ultimately OK. Anyway, the story from the track is that after the wreck was cleared, the fence was pinned back up, the stands in that area were cleared, and the event was run to its conclusion. As a proud New England Yankee bastard myself, I am glad they got the race done and I am glad that the drivers involved were all OK.
In the many years that Star Speedway has been open, they have surely seen some things but this is the nuttiest incident to strike that place in our memory banks!
