NASCAR Xfinity Series team owner Jordan Anderson walked around the Atlanta Motor Speedway garage on a brisk Saturday afternoon on March 18 adorning a winter coat, jeans and his usual smiling face.
Underneath those long sleeves, however, remained a scarred reminder of the dangers of racing and one of the most physically painful moments of his entire life.
Six months earlier, Anderson was racing in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Talladega Superspeedway. It was his fifth truck start of the year, and the underdog fan favorite was running fourth with only two laps to go in stage one. He had one of the best handling trucks of his career and appeared to have a legitimate chance of winning his first career race.
Then his No. 3 Chevrolet Silverado literally — and spontaneously — combusted.
“I saw the fire in the floorboard and didn’t think anything of it,” Anderson told Frontstretch from his Jordan Anderson Racing hauler at Atlanta. “Then I could start to feel it. Then it was like, ‘Man, it’s getting hot. It’s getting real hot. I’ve got to get out of here.’
“I’ve run over 100 Truck races and never had anything like that. … It didn’t seem real. It was happening, but in my head, I almost blocked it out. Then came the real moment of, ‘The fire is so hot, it’s going to force me out this truck.’”
Like something out of a Hollywood action movie, Anderson, who was pumped up on adrenaline and blinded by the dark smoke now enveloping his cockpit, realized his truck was heading toward the inside safer barrier. With the idea that he could potentially be pinned inside of the burning vehicle by the wall and the unbearable heat of the fire surrounding him, he decided to make a lifesaving, yet dangerous, move.
As his racing truck was still speeding toward the wall, he climbed out.
As his truck came to stop, the racing world watched for minutes as he laid on the ground and was quickly attended to by NASCAR medical personnel. The 31-year-old had third-degree burns on his neck and arm.
Anderson had sustained many injuries in his past doing other extreme sports including, but not limited to, losing his front teeth and breaking several bones.
But this level of pain was something else. It was the worst in his life.
“I’ve usually got a pretty good pain tolerance,” Anderson said. “My front six teeth are fake. I’ve broken my kneecap, a rotator cuff, broke my wrist, fingers,…
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