Indy 500: Wrecker Truck Carrying Fernando Alonso’s Mangled McLaren IndyCar Crashes Into Bridge
The luck of the papaya orange racing team isn’t looking good—and this is just the second day of Indy 500 practice.
A wrecker truck carrying Fernando Alonso's mangled McLaren Racing Chevy IndyCar suffered a bizarre accident when it crashed into the famous Gasoline Alley at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. For unknown reasons, the truck driver and on-hand safety marshals failed to take note of the height of the crane carrying the orange racer, causing it to collide with a massive steel beam supporting the Alley's roof.
A photo of the not catastrophic but rather embarrassing "oopsie" was posted to Instagram by former racing driver and NBC Sports commentator Paul Tracy with the caption: "A bad day gets worse when the Alonso wrecker wrecked in the garage and got stuck."
As the photo shows, the red flatbed appears to be making its way out of the Speedway's pit area when the hydraulic arm of the crane hit the roof of Gasoline Alley. I'm certainly not a wrecker truck expert, but by the looks of it, the crane could've been lowered another foot or so in order to help it clear the ceiling. This becomes even more apparent in the photo below taken by IndyCar and IMS photographer Chris Owens, which shows the crane fully extended and sitting much lower than it did when going under the bridge. By the time this second photo was taken, Alonso's car was already being dropped off at its garage, which means they successfully navigated their way out of Gasoline Alley.
It's unclear if the truck suffered any considerable damage to its hydraulic mechanism, but what's more than evident is that the McLaren is going to need quite a few hours of work before it turns laps at over 224 miles per hour once again.
