Wythe Raceway
Overton endures flip (and reflip) at Wythe
By Kevin Kovac
DirtonDirt.com senior writer
Crew members work on Brandon Overton's wrecked ride. (DirtonDirt.com)
RURAL RETREAT, Va. (July 13) — Brandon Overton was changed into street clothes and munching from a potato chip bag he held in his left hand as he watched his crew survey his pummeled Infinity Chassis. He was in good spirits and completely uninjured after crashing and flipping while running second on the night lap of Saturday night’s 53-lap Schaeffer’s Southern Nationals feature at Wythe Raceway. | RaceWire
The 33-year-old star from Evans, Ga., wasn’t sure, however, what precipitated his wild accident.
“I don’t really know,” Overton said, shrugging his shoulders in utter dismay. “It’s so wadded up now you don’t know what broke. I mean, the lower’s broke (control arm), but …”
Overton wasn’t battling for position. No other car played a role in the incident. He was running roughly two seconds behind leader Dale McDowell of Chickamauga, Ga., and had almost the same margin on third-running and eventual winner Chris Madden of Gray Court, S.C., when his machine suddenly shot into the outside wall between turns one and two, climbed it and rolled onto its roof.
There was no warning for Overton. Something simply caused him to lose control as he sped around the sprawling, lightning-fast half-mile oval.
“Fifty-three laps here is like a damn marathon, so I was sitting there riding around,” said Overton, who won Wythe's Southern Nationals event in 2018 and '19. “I had a real good car. I wasn’t even doing anything. I was just kind of moving around — I’d open up my entries (to the corners) a little bit, just kind of seeing where I needed to be. There’s always cautions from s--- happening here, so I wasn’t worried (about falling behind McDowell).
“Then I went down in there (to turn one) and it just didn’t turn. It went straight.”
Overton considered the possibility that a blown right-front tire was the culprit — like what befell him during last year’s Dream weekend at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, where a tire explosion sent him hurtling into the turn-one wall and left him with a sore neck and back for the rest of the summer. But upon further review, he said that was unlikely because the circumstances of Saturday’s wreck were different from his ordeal at Eldora.
“I’m not sure it’s a tire,” Overton said. “Like at Eldora … when you blow the tire out, it turns to the right, it shoots you straight right. Here, it didn’t do that. As soon as I lifted (off the gas) back there (approaching turn one) is when (the front end) hit the ground and I skidded to the wall, you know what I mean?
“I didn’t hit it near as hard (as Eldora). Everybody’s texting me (asking about the accident) … that wasn’t (nothing) compared to Eldora. That wasn’t nowhere near like it.”
The rollover was also something that didn’t happen to him at Eldora. His car’s left side churned up the clay — the left-rear wheel ended up entirely filled with mud — as he rode the rode the steel guardrail and he “just flipped, you know what I mean?” he remarked.
“I closed my eyes,” added Overton, who had rolled a car just once previously in his career, a long time ago when he was 15 years old and “flew out” out of Cherokee Speedway in Gaffney, S.C.
Overton’s most anxious moment came as he hung upside down in his seat near the outside wall. It’s an especially precarious position for a Dirt Late Model driver.
“You can’t get out,” Overton said. “Our crash bars push out, too, but when you’re buckled in, I couldn’t reach the crash bars to push them out to shimmy out the front. So I don’t know what to do.
“I seen the fuel (running out of the carburetor) and I was like, ‘This ain’t good. I just want to get the hell out.’ (The flip) bends the roof down too, so I was looking to the right and I was thinking, Well, maybe I can get out, and then I heard them (safety crew responding), and I was like, ‘F--- it. Just flip it over.’ I didn’t want them to halfway flip it over (with help from a tow truck to ease the car back onto its wheels). You ever seen them when (cars) catch on fire and they still about got ‘em upside down? Then everybody runs and leaves your ass sitting there burning.”
Overton’s desire was what prompted the track crew members to band together and quickly toss the car back over in a manner that appeared to be harsh as the car slammed back onto all fours. There were even observers — at the track and watching the FloRacing broadcast — who questioned how the car was turned over.
The driver inside the car, however, insisted on the action.
“I know everybody’s gonna give ‘em s--- about flipping me over, but when I was upside down I could see the fuel running out of the carburetor,” Overton said. “I know I got a good seat, and I know I was sitting on four inches of foam, so I told ‘em, ‘Just flip me over. I don’t give a s---.’ If it breaks my back, I’d rather have a broke back than get burnt the hell up.
“So they didn’t do anything wrong. They did exactly what I wanted them to. I don’t want them to think that they did something wrong. I was telling them to do that — flip me over! The worst part about being upside down is you know you can’t get out and you don’t want it to catch on fire.”
Overton wasn’t concerned about suffering an after-the-fact injury by having his car righted roughly.
“After Eldora, I’ve done nothing but make sure, when I do wreck, I’m good to go, you know what I mean?” Overton said, noting how he’s put more emphasis on making his cockpit safe. “So shout out to Dave Sharpley, (of) Sharp Advantage (Safety Products) … he’s got me a bad-ass (foam) insert in there so I really wasn’t worried about that. And Daryn Pittman with the Ultra Shield seat … yeah, I was cool.”
What’s more, Overton didn’t think his already-battered car needed to be babied.
“It looks way worse (the way the car crashed down when rolled over), but once you flip ‘em and crash ‘em, it’s tore every damn thing up anyway,” Overton said. “I mean, you ain’t gonna hurt it no more flipping it over.”
And the car was significantly damaged. According to Overton, the front clip was bent, suspension and body parts crushed, and “when the rear end hit it knocked all the under rails out of it.”
The especially bad part: it was Infinity car from Wells Motorsports that Overton debuted during last month’s Dream weekend at Eldora. He left pleased with its performance after finishing third in the 100-lap finale but now will likely look to take another machine to the track for September’s World 100.
“I wasn’t gonna run it (again until the World 100), but I ran it at Gaffney the other night (June 22’s Mid-East Super Late Model Series event) and the droop chain broke and we had other problems,” Overton said. “Then I decided to bring it here, but they’re building me another one right now so I was thinking I was gonna have some more time to go test (another car in necessary) before I go back to Eldora.”
That seems like it will be the case for Overton, who will be down a car again for a short time but does plan to run his other machine in Sunday’s Southern Nationals stop at Volunteer Speedway in Bulls Gap, Tenn., and the tour’s remaining nine races.
