Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

NASCAR America: Stolen pace cars, exploding jet dryers highlight NASCAR bizarreness

bs1C9r0QflHO
Dale Earnhardt Jr., Rutledge Wood and Dale Jarrett look back some of the most bizarre moments in NASCAR history.

The pace car crash in the IndyCar race at the Raceway at Belle Isle in Detroit, Michigan last Sunday had many scratching their heads, but it sent NASCAR America scrambling for the tape to showcase some of the more bizarre moments in stock car racing.

“Mark (Reuss, Executive Vice President of Global Product Development at General Motors) said, ‘look, I’ve driven tons of stuff there.’ He just essentially said it just got away from me,” Rutledge Wood reported. “That, I understand. I’ve screwed up some stuff in a car before.

“But we realize that is not the most bizarre thing we’ve seen.”

The stolen pace car at Talladega Superspeedway in 1986 highlighted NASCAR America’s list.

“When (the pace car thief) pulled up and stopped at the roadblock, they sat there and played that game of chicken with the locks for a few minutes,” Earnhardt recalled. “Because they had the keys. They’d unlock it; he’d lock it back. They did that a couple of times”

See Also: Bump & Run: Most bizarre scenes at the track

Juan Pablo Montoya’s 2012 Daytona 500 accident with the jet dryer is absolutely unforgettable to anyone watching NASCAR at the time.

“Nobody knew what happened, because nobody was paying attention,” Dale Jarrett said. “We had no idea what had taken place.”

For more, watch the video above.