Written by Adrian Beecher
As the flames from the left front of her No. 54 N29 Technologies LLC, Toyota Tundra started to flow around the A-Post and into her face as she entered pit road at Daytona International Speedway, Natalie Decker knew things were getting serious.
“I’ve been in wrecks before, saw a lot of crazy wrecks. Nothings ever scared me, but being on fire, that’s definitely scary in a racecar. Just I feel like, its a lot different and it doesn’t really happen often.“
Before she made it to pit road on the first lap catching on fire, the scene was very different.
It was Decker’s first ever truck race in the NASCAR Gander Outdoors series, and a previous week of success in the ARCA series at Daytona and excellent qualifying times, showed promise for Decker’s first ride.
“At Daytona we first did the ARCA race, and we did really well, we got 6th. Then I had really high hopes for the truck race, I was just so excited, I had a really good truck and really good team.”, says Decker, “I loved working with my spotter, I worked with him the week before, so I knew everything was going to be really well on that end.”
And then the drop of the green flag happened. As she’s going into turn one, she runs over a piece of debris and the left front goes on her.
“So it started with going into turn one I got the
Meanwhile, there are cars wrecking on the backstretch, as other trucks have found the same piece of debris Decker found.
“There’s not a caution, we don’t know why there’s not a caution, and people are wrecking. So I come down and as I’m getting on pit road, I hear, you’re on fire, get out! And then I’m trying to slow down, I’m going like 55 miles an hour, so I’m slowing down as fast as I can. I was so thankful we were the first pit stall.”
However, before she could pull into her pit stall, the left front tire burst into flames, which was intensified by a snapped oil line. Decker came to a halt just outside her pit box and worked to get out of the car, as her teammates rushed over to assist.
“But then I think it was my crew chief, he was like you’re on fire, get out now! I was getting out and then all I hear was get her out now! And then my interior guy Joel he came over the wall and got me out fast as well.”
Joel pulled Decker from the truck and helped her over the pit wall, where she stumbled, gathered herself and then had a few words with her dad, a laugh with her crew chief, and then went to the medical center where she got a hug from her mom and was cleared.
She said that the biggest thing she learned from this experience was something that’s hard for a racer to do, slow down when it goes down.
“I learned that when you have a flat, I thought I was slowed down as much as I could, cause it was still green. But after talking with my team, I should have slowed down even more and maybe that would have prevented other stuff from breaking as well as the oil line.” says Decker, “But that’s the biggest thing I learned from that.”
You can be assured that come next time it’s time to rev-up the engines at Daytona for Decker, she will be eager to get back out there and prove herself at the track that has treated her quite well for the most part in her young career, including winning the pole for ARCA back in 2018.
(Image Provided by DGR Crosley)
