The NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race on Naval Base Coronado is far from over as fans sit through their second red flag, this time for a major crash in turn four with 24 laps remaining in the race Saturday afternoon.
Sam Mayer made a mistake on the entry to the corner and hit the interior wall. This sent him flying into Anthony Alfredo’s car next to him, slamming both cars into the exterior wall. The temporary wall set up at the track moved nearly a meter from the impact. With the field bunched up since they only completed three corners at full speed, there was nowhere to go, and the cars piled in behind.
Seeing the damage to the wall, NASCAR immediately threw the red flag, knowing that they would have to repair the wall where Mayer and Alfredo hit.
Both Mayer and Alfredo have been seen and released from the car center, and Jeff Gluck of The Athletic has reported on X that Alfredo appears to be limping.
In total, 23 cars are being counted as involved in the crash.
Mayer was extremely upset with himself for causing the huge crash and radioed , “I’m so sorry, I have to be one of the worst race car drivers to touch this sport,” before getting out of his crashed race car.
“Initially, I thought he just got shoved in there or something,” Alfredo told Bob Pockrass after leaving the care center. “I don’t know how he shot into me like that. We were hit super hard, and if the hit to the wall wasn’t hard enough, when I bounced off of it, someone clobbered me at full throttle, and then I got hit like three or four more times, so I felt like a pinball. I felt like the wreck was never going to end.”
Dale Earnhardt Jr. shared that, in his driver’s seat, the steering column moved towards the roof, moving the steering box more than a foot towards the driver.
The damage to the wall was so great that it couldn’t be repaired in place. Crews had to remove the entire section and replace it.
Victoria Beaver is a nomadic sports writer who spends her time hopping between race tracks and hippie farms. She’s covered every corner of motorsports that will let her in from 410 Sprints to NASCAR to Supercross. Her daily driver is a 2010 Subaru that she refused to do the smallest amount of preventative maintenance on. Instead, she spends her free time and money building a 42-foot Skoolie to one day travel the country full time.
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