Brett Bodine piloted a blue Chevy SS pace car last night at the 2014 NASCAR Sprint Unlimited race. But something caused him to unexpectedly floor the accelerator and speed off to the infield. As he did so, the bouts of smoke emanating from the car’s passenger cabin and, subsequently, the flames coming out of the performance sedan’s trunk, made it obvious that the car was on fire.
Both Bodine and his passenger parked the SS and made it out safely, as fire crews pulled up lickety-split to extinguish the flames. Fortunately, everyone was fine.
As it turns out, the battery pack for the pace car’s safety lighting system caused the fire, as Slugger Labbe, crew chief for the #27 “Chevy SS” driven by Paul Menard, saw it himself and reported via Twitter:
I am happy to report that the @TeamChevy pacecar had a battery pack in the trunk for the external safety lights and that is what caught fire
— Slugger Labbe (@SluggerLabbe) February 16, 2014
NASCAR replaced the burnt SS pace car with a backup unit of an identical vehicle, and pole-setter Denny Hamlin went on to win the event in a Toyota-badged stock car.
Comments
Once the Chinese made crap starts coming in, get used to this sort of thing happening with ordinary unmodified road cars!
May I request the title be altered a bit to include something like “due to added emergency equipment” or such so that arm-chair CEOs do not surf-n-go thinking the SS is a flawed vehicle and not reading to see that it was (likely) a wiring problem or (as described) a battery failure.
It would be funny if it were an Australian sourced part that caused this.
The reality is you get crap and good from everywhere and there is no avoiding it anymore.
Odds are it was just something win the Whelen light system or a connection that was put in the install. If it is a Whelen it is going to be a American made part with American parts as they sell mostly law enforcement systems and have to make sure they meet the buying criteria for most cities to buy as they for bid imports. This is why some departments do not have the Chevy models.
For a little while I thought it was a Tesla. LOL!