By Deb Williams | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com

A fiery incident with five laps remaining in Saturday’s General Tire 200 at Talladega Superspeedway has left ARCA driver Derrick Lancaster hospitalized in the University of Alabama burn unit.

Lancaster’s wife, Elizabeth, said Saturday evening on Twitter that her 48-year-old husband was on a ventilator for at least 48 hours while doctors assessed his lung damage. She said he also suffered second- and third-degree burns to both of his arms, neck and face, and his arms were to be debrided.

Lancaster’s one-car accident occurred on the backstretch. When he slammed the wall, his car burst into flames. He continued down the backstretch with fire billowing from it before he finally spun and stopped it on the third-turn apron. 

This is the second time in less than a year Lancaster has been hospitalized with a severe racing injury. On Aug. 7 last year, he suffered a three-quarter fracture in his C1 vertebrae in a crash at Kingsport (Tenn.) Speedway. Lancaster spent nearly a week in an East Tennessee hospital’s intensive care unit with that injury and then wore a neck collar for three months. Doctors told him he would never drive a race car again, but he returned in February for the ARCA Menards Series season opener at Daytona and finished sixth. 

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