The PDS labor day weekend indirectly provided the most excitement this season so far from a rescue perspective. With the addition of Brandon (new guy from Bemidji) we began to think that he was the crap magnet for the weekend. While in R1 we were dispatched on Friday to a number of flat tows and 2 cars in the gravel at 12. Saturday Robert was blessed with Brandon and tallied up 8 flat tows with the rest of rescue sitting on Corners. Sunday was not much different. BUT the real debate started at the end of the day.
Seems Jim was doing his level best to cause trouble by consuming 8 root beers during the course of the day. This had little effect on the stuff at his corner. at the end of the day he handed off the empties to Rescue One to take up to the Hidden House Inn and with those empties in R1 the big call came in. With R1 on the way to the tower to return radios Jim radios from 371 that Rescue 1 is needed at the front gate for a roll-over PI. After turning around and Lighting up the lightbars we headed off to the front gate.
Once there we find that a exiting drag person with a '56 chev on a open trailer exited the track and attempted to cross 371 to head south. The problem with this choice was the the person in the towing vehicle may have neglected to consider the trailer as part of the required space to hold for a gap in the southbound traffic. This lead to the left lane of the northbound traffic on a VERY busy Sunday getting cut off and having nowhere to go. The Small SUV the was in the left lane impacted the car trailer just in front of the left front tire and sent the trailer and car over onto the passenger side. the SUV deployed the air bags and with driver and passenger wearing seat belts there was far less injury than could have happened. With Paul, Brandon, Jim and a number of Track Security attending to the scene things were under control in fairly short order. When sufficient 'locals", county and State folks showed up to deal with the incident the RL staff cleared the scene. What a way to end the weekend.
I'm not sure if it was Brandon or the Root Beer cans, but from past experience, I'm going to have to thank Jim for his fine efforts. The other lesson here is always be prepared for the unexpected. Other drivers don't always think thru their choices.
Play safe and see you at the track.
http://www.redlightrescue.com/article.php?story=20090909164314932