HOMESTEAD, Fla. — As Justin Bonsignore cradled his newborn son in the ambulance and stared at his peaceful face, he was thankful for his son’s arrival and amazed at how it happened, but he also had something he wanted to say to his second child.
“What the heck? You couldn’t make it 30 minutes or an hour (so) we could have done this easier?’’
Greyson Anthony Bonsignore was in his father’s arms in an ambulance because he arrived in his father’s Dodge pickup truck in a McDonald’s parking in the middle of the night on Feb. 28.
“I just can’t get over how crazy the whole situation is,” Bonsignore, who drives for Joe Gibbs Racing in the Xfinity Series, told NBC Sports on Saturday at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
The first Dash 4 Cash event of the season will be held at the 1.5-mile track.
The McDonald’s is the same one that Bonsignore and wife Taylor visited when they brought their first son, Evan, home from the hospital 15 months ago.
And in a way, Evan played a role in the unique arrival of his brother.
Evan got sick five days before Greyson’s birth. Taylor caught the bug two days later. She felt better the next day but began to have intermittent contractions shortly before she went to her doctor’s appointment.
The thought was Taylor’s contractions were due to being dehydrated from the stomach bug. But the contractions, while sporadic, continued into the next day, a Thursday.
When she went to bed that night, the contractions were about 10 minutes apart. That changed around 1:30 a.m. ET on Feb. 28. The contractions soon were six minutes apart and then they started happening quicker.
It was a week before Greyson was due to arrive, but he seemed ready now.
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE – DECEMBER 02: 2021 NASCAR NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championship driver, Justin Bonsignore and guest Taylor Albert pose on the red carpet prior to the NASCAR Champion’s Banquet at the Music City Center on December 02, 2021 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
Taylor and Justin Bonsignore (Photo: Getty Images)
Bonsignore got his wife to the truck and they soon took off from their Wading River, New York, home on Long Island. Less than a mile into the trip to the hospital, Taylor’s water broke.
They still had 30 minutes to go.
Bonsignore, a four-time NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion, admits he took liberties on the two-lane road to get to the hospital.
“I’m going as fast as I can … making sure we don’t hit a deer or somebody pops out of a side road,” he told his wife.
“You got to pull over. I’m not going to make it,” she told him.
Bonsignore kept thinking: “No way. This is not going to happen to us.”
She was adamant … and screaming for him to pull over.
He called 911.
NASCAR’s reaction comes after Christopher Bell stopped in a teammate’s stall to tighten a loose wheel last weekend at Las Vegas.
They had just cleared a wooded area, passed through a traffic light and pulled into the McDonald’s parking lot. He knew they’d be easier to find there then along another part of the secluded road.
He stopped the truck, jumped out and ran to the passenger side.
The 911 operator asked: “Can you see the head?”
“Yep.”
“OK, you’re going to …”
Too late.
Greyson arrived.
The 911 operator then asked “Is he breathing?”
Greyson made no noise.
Bonsignore had given his wife their son. Taylor rubbed Greyson and patted him, trying to get him to respond.
He began to cry.
“The best thing you could ever hear,” Bonsignore said.
DAYTONA BEACH, FL – FEBRUARY 14: Justin Bonsignore (#19 Joe Gibbs Racing M3 Technology Toyota) watches the action in the garage prior to practice for the NASCAR Xfinity Series United Rentals 300 on February 14, 2025 at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, FL. (Photo by Jeff Robinson/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Justin Bonsignore will make his third NASCAR Xfinity start this weekend at Homestead. (Photo: Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Soon an officer arrived and Bonsignore ended his four-minute call with 911. Another officer pulled into the parking lot. The ambulance got there a couple of minutes later.
EMTs tended to Taylor while an officer took Bonsignore to the back of his truck.
“The adrenaline was so high,” Bonsignore said of how he felt then. “It was like winning race.”
Then one of the EMTs called to Bonsignore.
“Dad,” the EMT said, “Do you want to cut the (umbilical) cord?”
“I delivered this one. I think you guys can take care of that.”
They let Taylor cut the cord.
After Bonsignore got a few moments with his son in the ambulance, his son and wife were taken to the hospital. He followed in his truck.
When they arrived at the hospital, Bonsignore said that “there had be to be 50 people waiting for us to arrive. (Taylor) felt like a celebrity. She said on every turn she made on the stretcher up to the room there were people there to congratulate here and just say how crazy it was.”
Later, the staff asked Bonsignore and his wife questions to fill out the birth certificate — it lists the address of the McDonald’s as the location. When asked what time Greyson was born, Taylor quickly answered: “It was 2:49.”
“How,” he asked her, “did you know that?”
“I just looked at the clock (in the truck) right after it happened.”
“That’s what you were thinking? I was freaking out, losing my mind.”
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