Crew member gifted car fender from dangerous close call in Gateway pit road crash

Bryan Backus, who works as the rear tire changer for the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series team, narrowly avoided serious injury last weekend at WWT Raceway (Gateway).

A pit road stack-up at Gateway led to a pileup that blocked the entirety of pit road and led to a red flag. Bryan Backus was one of three Joe Gibbs Racing crew members working on the right-side of Crews’ car when cars suddenly spun towards them. Jackman Matt Wilps got clipped by the spinning No. 88 of Rajah Caruth, while Nick Sanchez slammed into the rear of the JGR car.

Backus will kneeling on the ground, changing the right-rear tire, and was nearly sandwiched between the two cars in a terrifying moment. Thankfully, no one was injured in the melee, and one week later, Backus received a gift from Sanchez and his crew chief, Jody Measamer.

During the pre-race show at Bristol Motor Speedway, they gifted Backus a panel from the damaged No. 87 car of Sanchez from last weekend’s race.

“I figured I put a dent in it, so I might want to get something there,” remarked Backus.

“Looking back at the film, watching it repeatedly, the more I watched it, the worse it got and the closer it became to being really bad. Watching it back and forth, you could see it hit me and I put a dent in the side. I said, ‘hey that would be pretty cool to hang in the garage.’ So, here we are. These guy are gracious enough to hand it over and let me keep it.”

Recalling the incident, Backus told The CW: “When it happened, I had no idea. Going out like a normal stop coming, around the 17 [Corey Day]. And the next thing you know, I’m laying over top of the jack. It was just –it happened so fast. There was no warning from anybody.”

On how he is able to simply go back to work after such a close call, Backus replied: “I mean, obviously, it’s definitely a tough thing to do. But if you’re thinking of anything else other than your job, you’re not going to be able to do your job correctly. So it’s just something that we’ve trained (for), something that we’ve been practicing and getting used to and repetition, so you just know what’s coming next and not thinking about the other stuff that potentially could happen.”

Reportedly, NASCAR is going to send representatives to Gateway in an effort to see how pit road can be improved and made safer at the Illinois track.