https://x.com/NASCARONFOX/stat…Under caution, Thomas Annunziata’s Tricon Toyota Tundra TRD Pro was running second when, all of a sudden, his truck went up in flames Saturday afternoon in the LiUNA 150 at Lime Rock Park. Annunziata pulled off the track and lept out of his vehicle.
Annunziata was first brought to the infield care center for further evaluation, then transported to a local medical facility.
Tricon released a statement to social media stating, “Thomas Annunziata is awake and alert and being transported to an area medical facility for further evaluation.”
A lap earlier, Annunziata was closing in on Giovanni Ruggiero in a battle for the lead when Chandler Smith stalled in turn four, bringing out the fifth caution of the race and third for cause.
The race was supposed to go green on lap 81, but was instead momentarily red-flagged for cleanup of the track after Annunziata’s truck spilled oil during its fire.
Jerame Donley said post-race that there would be a thorough investigation into what sparked the issue, per NASCAR.com.
“We honestly don’t know,” Donley said of the fire’s cause. “It’s kind of chicken or the egg. There’s a lot of stuff that’s melted under there; a lot of stuff got hot. We’ll get back to the shop and try to dissect it and figure out what happened. Obviously, there’s been some alternator issues throughout the field. We had one at San Diego. I think the 34 (Front Row Motorsports team) had a couple issues today. The 9 (of race winner Grant Enfinger) had an issue. Just seems like maybe there’s some issues going on that we don’t know about yet, and we’ve got to get back to the shop and dissect it. So unfortunately, don’t have the short, quick answer right now.”
This harrowing incident comes a day after Annunziata won the ARCA Series race at Lime Rock Park on Friday night, his second career ARCA win at the same spot as his first.
He was recorded as 29th in the Truck race following his wreck. This was his second career Truck series start, with both coming at Lime Rock Park as well.
Victoria Beaver is a nomadic sports writer who spends her time hopping between race tracks and hippie farms. She’s covered every corner of motorsports that will let her in from 410 Sprints to NASCAR to Supercross. Her daily driver is a 2010 Subaru that she refused to do the smallest amount of preventative maintenance on. Instead, she spends her free time and money building a 42-foot Skoolie to one day travel the country full time.