Samara Steel, a veteran speedway attendee, had expected a “fun night out” with her kids, enjoying the Woodford Glen race when two cars crashed in front of onlookers.
“We kind of cheered it on, and then I heard my kids yelling ‘mum! mum!’ next to me,” said Steel.
“I turned around and my daughter was covered in blood and sheet white.”
Steel described going into “auto-pilot” to tend to her daughter’s wounds, which had been caused by a chunk of metal that had flown over the speedway’s high fencing.
The debris initially hit a friend on the chest before ricocheting into 13-year-old Gracie’s head.
“When I saw the blood, I dived on her. I’ve never moved so fast in my life,” the mother said.
“It was so scary, I started panicking and sweating - I was just about in tears as I was freaking out so much about it. Her whole colour had drained, her lips were a deathly grey colour.”
Paramedics rushed to Gracie to tend to her wounds, taking her into an ambulance for emergency care.
Gracie, now concussed, has butterfly stitches in her head as well as a patch to stop the continuous bleeding from the wound. Steel still feels the effects of the devastating night.
“The look on her face, I can’t get that image out of my head - I’ve been waking up with that image for the last two nights now.”
The driver of the car involved in the crash apologised to the teenager following the incident, according to Steel. The paramedics tending to her daughter were also “really nice”.
She hasn’t heard from Woodford Glen following the incident, however, it’s understood the speedway covered the medical costs from the night.
Steel has been attending speedway events since she was very young, it’s the first time she’s experienced any injuries from the events.
While the mother is weary of returning to the speedway again, she said the incident has already caused one child to write off any further spectacles.
“My youngest daughter is six and after the speedway she said ‘I’m never coming back here again’,” said Steel.
“She’s like ‘they hurt Gracie’ and went on about it, so she doesn’t want to go back. I’ve been taking her since she was a baby.”
The family were seated in the first and second rows of seating at the venue, the track is surrounded by high fencing.
“[The fencing] is high, but not as high as it should be,” said Steel.
“You don’t expect [debris] to fly over the fence, it’s too big to go through it as it’s a little bigger than the grates. So if the fencing was a little higher it would be helpful.”
When approached by NZME about the incident, Woodford Glen Speedway said the fencing was adequate enough and it was looking into the night’s events.
Speedway president Ivan McPhail confirmed its fences comply with all the speedway regulations and rules. They won’t be commenting on the specific incident while it’s under investigation.
- Nathan Morton
