Super late model drivers Dylan Yoder (24) and Nathan Long (63) may have caught the worst of this pileup. It occurred during the feature at Selinsgrove Speedway.
“All I could remember is that someone hit the inside wall on the backstretch and spun across the track,” Yoder, of Middleburg, Pennsylvania, said. “Then I remember hitting someone sideways in front of me. Cars just piled in. Two or three others hit me from behind.”
One the hardest hits from Yoder’s car came from Nathan Long’s car.
“I thought [Yoder] was clear of the spinning cars,” said Long, of Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. “Then he hit something and spun. I had nowhere to go.”
Long hit hard enough that he said his HANS device showed stress marks. He sat in a Kirkey full-containment seat, with Zamp belts. He wore a Zamp helmet.
“A representative of HANS just explained to me how to look for stress marks,” Long said. “I had my HANS device refurbished just a few weeks ago, now I will have to have it done again.
“The important thing is that my safety equipment protected me. It was quite an impact, and I wasn’t hurt.”
Yoder, a three-time super late model track champ at Port Royal Speedway, sat in an Ultra Shield Race Products seat with Simpson belts. He wore a Simpson helmet, with a HANS device.
“In 15 years of racing super late models … it was the first time I had been upside down,” said Yoder. “My HANS device got stuck between me and the headrest when I was upside down. A track crew member helped me out of the car. Luckily, the cage held up and I was able to get out the driver’s side window. I’m just a little sore, that’s it.”
Both Dylan Yoder and Nathan Long took their Rocket XR1 chassis to Coleby Frye Motorsports for evaluation and repairs.
“We’ll need a front clip,” Yoder said. “Coleby will do the framework. We’ll do the bodywork and put everything back together. We’re hoping to be racing this weekend.”
Long’s car required more work.
“We’ll need front and rear clips,” said Long. “My car got tagged in the rear. The rear end broke free and bent both upper frame rails. It was just the second race on this car.”
Despite the amount of damage, Nathan Long hopes to return.
“We are as low budget as it comes,” Long said. “This one hurt us. We put the car together ourselves. Everything on it we owned, that we [being] my parents, Kelly and Kyle, my girlfriend Rhiannon and my sister Grace.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
