Days Ahead of Most-Anticipated All-Star Race, Bizarre Practice Incident Leaves NASCAR Fans Distressed

For the first time in a very long time, the North Wilkesboro Speedway is getting some NASCAR racing action. Admittedly, only the NASCAR Cup and the Truck Series will be at the venue, while the Xfinity Series gets a break. Of course, most of the hype is reserved for the Cup Series All-Star race. However, the Craftsman Truck Series has the first crack at the North Wilkesboro Speedway.

As far as the race weekend went, the Truck Series vehicles would be on track first for afternoon practice. After the session wrapped up, Carson Hocevar topped the time sheets ahead of Ty Majeski. Behind them were Chase Purdy, Zane Smith and Kaden Honeycutt rounding out the Top 5.

Drama broke out in the middle of the NASCAR Truck session

Sometime during the practice session, there was a massive scare for the G2G Racing team. This was because their #46 truck, driven by Akinori Ogata, inexplicably erupted in a sheet of flames. The driver was running smoothly when smoke came billowing out from the back of the Toyota truck. The smoke soon turned to fire and Ogata slithered into the outside wall. Fortunately, the Japanese driver was able to come to a stop and clamber out from his barbecued truck.

It was a bit of a shame because he was really looking forward to this race. As far as his progress was getting along, Ogata was showing steady improvement as he ticked off the laps. In his previous appearance in a Truck, he finished in a respectable 17th place at the Atlanta Motor Speedway. Akinori Ogata’s incident brought out the second caution of the day after Norm Benning crashed out earlier in the session.

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Akinori Ogata was bitterly disappointed with the situation

Speaking to the media after the race, Ogata said, “I don’t know exactly what happened, but somebody told me the oil line broke. Then they started to catch fire at Three before we hit the wall. But I thought about it, cut tire or something at Three. I’m uncontrolled at the track and it hit the wall and it catch fire there.

“The truck was pretty fast and the practice time get better, faster track. Unfortunately, this happened so, we didn’t have a backup truck. Especially this weekend, I have Asian-American and Pacific Island heritage, but I couldn’t make it. So that sucks.”

Ogata also confirmed that he was fine after the incident. This was because the fire broke out a little further away from him. However, he was still hampered by a lot of smoke billowing out from the truck. Later on, he admitted that he wasn’t sure whether he would be back in a NASCAR truck later this year. As it happens, he will be heading to the Hickory Speedway for a late model race.

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