FORESTVILLE - For a moment, Kevin Beach's sportsman car seemed frozen in time.
Spinning horizontally in the air along the frontstretch fence and ripping it down with sparks flying, the remains of Beach's car finally landed with a thud on the frontstretch. With that, and the inevitable red flag which followed, Sunday's racing program at Big Diamond Speedway was done.
The 19th-lap confrontation between Beach and the driver he was chasing, Shawn Light, for the lead during the 25-lap feature led to a frightening incident reminiscent of NASCAR driver Carl Edwards' spinning crash into the catch fence in 2009 at Talladega Superspeedway.
In Sunday's wreck, an entire section of fencing, including posts, were torn away and tubing surrounding the flagstand was broken.
Unlike Edwards' crash, though, no fans or flagmen were injured, Big Diamond co-owner Jake Smulley said.
Events followed quickly after Beach's car stopped:
- To fans' applause because he wasn't hurt, Beach exited his mangled car and ran quickly to the second turn to confront Light, still seated in his car. Beach leaned into Light's car before he was pulled away by security personnel.
- Track officials called the race complete and minutes later awarded the win to third-place finisher Doug Hendricks. Light was penalized for rough driving to the position of the final car running, one spot behind Beach's 12th-place finish in the 18-car field.
- Because of the opening of unprotected grandstand along the frontstretch, the scheduled roadrunner feature was postponed. It will be one of two features for the division in next Sunday's 6:15 p.m. program.
Smulley said the fence will be repaired before the next program. It features the return of 358 modifieds after 358 late models replaced them Sunday and greatly entertained the crowd with a feature won by Dover's Coleby Frye.
"We have a good crew of guys to get it back together," said Smulley, adding, "It's a lot of work. Poles are ripped out of the ground. I could see all of the guide wires are down. The fencing's down. It's quite a bit of money in damage there."
However, there was little hope for Beach's car, which climbed a rear wheel of Light's No. 91 to produce the violent wreck.
"He'd just seen me coming around him and he turned right," Beach, of Llewellyn, said. "He pushed me into the wall, up across the wall. He never stopped until I was flipping, when enough was enough, I guess."
Light seemed stunned as his crew examined his car.
"I just came off (turn) four to pass a lapped car, went down the straightaway, and I think I came up too hard," the Jonestown driver said. "We hit, and he didn't lift and I didn't lift. It just turned my front end into the frontstretch (wall). ... That's racing. What are you going to do?"
He was also resigned to the track's punishment.
"Not at all," he said about any surprise at the call. "We had a great run. We're out here to have fun. I can't be more happy than that."
By the time of the crash, Light and Beach had pulled away from Hendricks, who was glad in retrospect he didn't have a closer view as the crash was happening.
"You never want to win one like that," the Orwigsburg driver said, noting he drove through a cloud of dust and never saw how bad the crash was until after he had stopped on the backstretch.
Because of the penalty, Lehighton's Joe Mooney was awarded second place ahead of Tim Fitzpatrick, Wayne Witmer and Robin Schultz.
Before the crash, Frye and 358 late model feature runner Grant Adams, of Ono, Lebanon County, produced a wild two-car duel for the lead in heavy lapped traffic.
Frye had passed race leader and heat winner Ron Kline with a sliding first-turn pass on the ninth lap, but Adams took the point on an 11th-lap restart.
Frye chased Adams until both encountered a lapped car on the fronstretch as the sign for two laps remaining came from the flagstand. There, Frye eased past Adams and held him off over the final lap to win by .24 of a second.
"I got a little tight on the restart, and I was hunting him the whole time," Frye said. "I knew I had to make the move there. ... Lapped cars helped out and I ended up getting a good win."
Driving a car that Dover's Larry Baer piloted to ninth place on Saturday night at Lincoln Speedway, Frye said his win came in only his second appearance at Big Diamond. He said he last raced there eight years ago, but quickly liked Sunday's track.
"Anytime you can have two grooves, that's good for a race and you can have a good time," Frye said.
Before Frye's win, York's Chase Billet recorded the other heat win in the two races conducted for 18 358 late models.
Kris Ney and Marc Berzowski claimed roadrunner heat wins. Schultz and Guy Germano posted sportsman heat victories.
Yet, by the end of the night, fans instead were talking on phones about the big crash and were taking pictures of the damaged fence.
Smulley expressed relief one of the management's initial projects was the replacement of that very fencing because of fear about a crash.
"There was a concern it was going to happen, but I'm glad we did replace it," he said. Otherwise, he added, "I'm sure it would have been ugly. I'm sure somebody would have gotten hurt."