Woman hit by Kyle Busch's car at Bristol made precautionary hospital visit
A woman who was bumped by Kyle Busch's wounded car in the infield at Bristol Motor Speedway on Sunday said she was sore and headed to the hospital following the race for precautionary reasons.
Busch brought his car to the infield after he hit the wall a second time from a flat right-front tire. The right side of Busch's car was severely damaged and the right-front wheel was bent. As his car slowly slid to a stop in the infield, it clipped Erin Vandyke in the back of the left leg.
“After it happened, I didn’t go get checked initially when it happened,” Vandyke told FOXSports.com. “But after I started bending around, it starting hurting. So I went to the infield medical center and got checked out. And they told me if it started hurting more to go on and get checked completely, because they didn’t have X-rays there.”
Vandyke also reportedly posted this to Facebook Sunday evening after the collision.
Facebook post from fan hit by Busch today. Note she's the wife of a popular Late Model driver and should know better pic.twitter.com/yXIHuB9V10
— Matt Weaver (@MattWeaverSBN) April 18, 2016
Busch also spun during Sunday's race. He retired his car after hitting the wall a second time and ended up finishing 38th.
It's easy to assign blame in a situation like this to either Busch or the woman, who was the only person in the path of Busch's car. But, at least initially, this doesn't seem to be a case where there's any fault. If you watch the GIF closely, an official had to jump out of the way of Busch's car. And Busch's car appears to be traveling underneath a rope dividing parts of the garage.
Given the noise levels at Bristol, you can't say with any certainty that the woman could have heard Busch's car coming. And given the condition of his right-front wheel, Busch's car doesn't look like it would have been easy to steer or stop. He was trying to get to the garage and was pulling in towards a Joe Gibbs Racing team pit box. There appear to be more people on that concrete patch Busch was on before veering to the left.
It's a bit surprising that incidents like this don't happen more often in the garage at NASCAR races given the level of fan access at NASCAR races. The garage can be a very crowded place, especially at smaller tracks or high-profile races. It can be hard to stay clear of every car when you're paying complete attention. Thankfully in this case, Vandyke wasn't seriously hurt.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
