Wesley Jones was involved in an on-track incident during Thursday’s testing session ahead of the Snowbird Outlaw Nationals presented by Motion Raceworks at Bradenton Motorsports Park.
The incident, which included the car becoming airborne, making contact with the wall, and flipping onto its roof, resulted in a fire. Fortunately, Jones was able to walk away unharmed.
The incident occurred in the right lane when the car’s front end lifted off the ground, drifted toward the wall, and ultimately went airborne. Jones described the series of events in detail.
“The car got up on two wheels—front end in the air—right off the start line. It started drifting toward the right wall, and when I got out of it, I must have had the wheel cut a bit,” explained Jones. “I didn’t want to go into the other lane. I tried to correct it -when it did, the rear end whipped around and it was pretty much over with at that point. I wish I could have gotten the chute out a little quicker, but by the time I thought about it, it was in the wall right there and ended up on the side, and I’m like, oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. But it was a soft landing on the top.”
The car sustained damage, including a fire confined to the engine compartment, but Jones emphasized that the cockpit remained unaffected.
“I was lucky—none of the fire got into the cockpit, and I was able to get out of the car as rescue crews arrived,” added Jones. “When you’re upside down and trying to get out, it’s a little different, but once I got the steering wheel out of the way and released my belts, I managed to climb out. Thankfully, I’m fine and didn’t get hurt.”
Jones added that the team is shifting focus to his teammate’s car, Jason Scruggs, for the remainder of the weekend.
“We hate to lose one of our best cars, but we’ve got another NHRA car at home. For now, we’ll run our older NHRA car for the Snowbirds, and hopefully, it performs well.”
This story was originally published on December 6, 2024. 
