--- title: "Local NBC Station Fooled by AI Video of Race Track Power Outage Causing Huge Crash" date: "2025-10-24" modified: "2025-10-24" authors: - name: "Caleb Jacobs" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/caleb-jacobs" url: "https://www.thedrive.com/news/local-nbc-station-fooled-by-ai-video-of-race-track-power-outage-causing-huge-crash" categories: - "News" - "Watch This" --- # Local NBC Station Fooled by AI Video of Race Track Power Outage Causing Huge Crash ![Screenshot of an NBC Chicago newscast featuring an AI-generated video]() *\@SteelHorseLive via X\* The internet's infatuation with [AI slop]() is spiraling, but surely you don't need me to tell you that. The constant deepfakes of celebrities saying something ridiculous can really wear a fella down. Some joke pages on social media manage to be genuinely funny with it on occasion, like a blind squirrel finding a nut, and they trick a lot of people in the process. [This phony clip]() of a dirt track race car pileup did that and more when it fooled a legit news outlet into believing the crash really happened. *[NBC Chicago]()* aired a short segment Wednesday night that featured a video from [the Weaber Valley Speedway page]() on Facebook. The (fake) footage shows an entire field of dirt late model race cars circling the track, only for the lights to go off, leading to a crash. > [View this post on Instagram]() > [A post shared by Weaber Valley Speedway (@weabervalleyspeedway)]() On its own, that isn't entirely unbelievable—and, for sure, some might see it as newsworthy. But the Channel Five station missed some crucial clues that this was really a bunch of bologna. "We later found out the power company in the area cut the lights to intimidate the track owners into paying their electric bill on time," the reporter explained on-air, pulling info from the post's caption that was written in broken English. "The track then gave each car in the wreck an extra $5 to go toward repair work." https://twitter.com/SteelHorseLive/status/1981187862600307035 This fits in perfectly with Weaber Valley Speedway's schtick. If you visit the page, which has roughly 340,000 followers on [Facebook]() and 40,000 more on [Instagram](), you'll see that it's constantly posting about redneck stereotypes that are cranked up to 11. Every once in a while, they post something fairly believable, but most of their clips are obviously satire (albeit extraordinarily well-done). Surely, if *NBC Chicago* had seen [the video of a NASA space shuttle crashing on the track]() or [a possum smoking a cigarette while giving the camera a thumbs up](), they would've known this clip was fake, too. The Weaber Valley Speedway page is run by Howard Weaver, and I was able to talk to him on the phone about this evening news snafu. "The way he said that with a straight face," Weaver laughed, talking about the newscaster believing the backstory. When a friend sent him a recording of the news clip, he wondered if it was real or AI. "You can't trust anything nowadays," he quipped. Weaver told me he made the clip with OpenAI's new Sora 2 video generator. He said it's the best tool right now for making hyper-realistic clips, but it requires a lot of coaching to make something as clean as the power outage video. "My prompt for a single video like that is probably three paragraphs long," Weaver said. "I'm not just saying, 'Do a video of the power going out at the dirt track and then a car crash.' I'm typing file names for it to use, to make it look like a cell phone video, like, 'Shaky handheld iPhone 11 video recorded from the bleachers' and blah blah blah." "I'm like practically writing a book to get a 10-second video," Weaver continued. > [View this post on Instagram]() > [A post shared by Weaber Valley Speedway (@weabervalleyspeedway)]() Weaber Valley has grown into one of the largest dirt track pages on Facebook, only trailing big ones like[ Eldora Speedway]() in follower count, and it's not even real. A lot of people are in on the joke as a result, but there are still droves of people who get fooled. The hysteria will only spread as models like Sora improve with each passing update. "I have mixed feelings about it because it's kind of scary, but it's funny, but then it's also scary," Weaver said. "I think social media is going to be killed by this." Maybe that wouldn't be so bad after all, but this story isn't really about that. *Got a tip or question for the author? Contact them directly: caleb@thedrive.com* ## Author Caleb Jacobs is The Drive’s senior editor. When he’s not searching for stories or poring over copy, he’s usually driving his dump truck or wishing it was running so he could drive it. He was born and raised in the Missouri Ozarks, and he lives there today with his family. ### Author social links [LinkedIn]() [Instagram]() [Twitter]()