There were frantic scenes in the opening race of the National Sports Sedans Series at Winton Motor Raceway when a car spectacularly went up in flames.
Competing at round four of the SpeedSeries season, Nick Smith suddenly stopped his Mazda RX-7 on lap seven of the 12-lap affair as fluid poured out the bottom of the car.
The trailing pack of cars were forced to take evasive action as Smith got out of his car, searching for his fire extinguisher.
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The scenes became more frantic as smoke began to billow out of the bonnet of the car.
The severity of the fire wasn’t lost on Stan Sport commentator Cameron van den Dungen.
“We need to get our marshalls out to that pretty quickly,” he urged.
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“Race control will be seeing this one on their screens right now.
“Many of our drivers in National Sports Sedans, they own these cars as well.
“They’re not professional drivers, they’re drivers that own their own vehicles.
“This is becoming quite expensive.”
TCR Australia Series driver and commentator Josh Buchan added, “He’s trying to do it himself with his extinguisher, he needs to do a runner.”
Fire began licking under the engine bay as the smoke grew.
Marshalls soon arrived with fire extinguishers, lifting the bonnet to suffocate the fire which was eventually put out before engulfing the car.
The race was brought under control by the safety car and remained under yellow until taking the checquered flag.
Tony Ricciardello won the interrupted race ahead of pole position winner Jordan Caruso while Josh Haynes claimed third.
The National Sports Sedan Series forms part of the SpeedSeries program at Winton Motor Raceway on June 9-11.
Coverage is live and ad-free across Saturday and Sunday on Stan Sport with 9Gem hosting free-to-air coverage from 2pm on Saturday.
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