Imagine watching a race unfold at a speedway from the comfort of a skybox when a brake pad comes flying through the window, causing a piece of glass to get lodged in your throat.
That is what happened this past Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway.
A brake pad broke loose from Sam Hornish Jr.'s car, flying more than 100 feet in the air into an eighth-floor skybox.
Linda Gregoire, an eyewitness, explained it happened seconds after the NASCAR Sprint Cup race ended.
"Everyone thought it was a gunshot," Gregoire said. "It scared the thunder out of us."
The pad was so hot from the race that once it entered the skybox, it burned a big hole in the suite's carpet. According to Gregoire, one man "was holding his chest" while another man had glass stuck in his throat.
"Some of the waitresses had glass on their trays," she said. "It was very scary."
One man — most likely the man with glass in his throat — was taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
As rare as it for random debris to be falling around Texas Motor Speedway, a woman was injured at the track two years ago when she was hit with a stray bullet while sitting in her RV near the track. Fortunately, the wound was not life-threatening.
Luckily neither instance resulted in serious injury, as a direct hit from a brake pad would have done much more damage than a piece of glass getting lodged in someone's throat.
