Emergency services were deployed this afternoon to an accident on the grounds of motor sports club Motodrome at the Veenakkers in Emmer-Compascuum. Stock car competitions will take place there today.
The accident was reported around half past two. Police, fire brigade, ambulance and an air ambulance rushed to the motocross track. Nothing is yet known about the severity of the driver’s injuries.
Jos Bruggeman of Speedway Emmen, the organization of the races, announced that it was a racing accident involving a stock car. “These are very small cars with a steel frame,” he explains. “Accidents are very rare in this sport.”
Bruggeman says it didn’t look like an accident. “The driver was hit by a fellow driver on the side of the car. As happens a hundred times in such a competition.”
The stock car competitions take place on an oval track of 400 meters long. “He got a little tap in one corner and in the other corner he stopped the car in the safe zone,” says Bruggeman.
The young driver then asked for assistance with hand signals, after which the race was stopped. He is said to have suffered from back problems. To give the rider privacy, visibility screens were placed during the medical examination.
Speedway Emmen has been organizing these types of races on the track at the Veenakkers for twenty years and there is always a doctor and a fire brigade team present. They took the driver’s complaints seriously and decided to scale up. Bruggeman: “Safety is our priority.”
The roof was removed from the car so that firefighters could remove the man from the vehicle. “That was purely a precaution to get the rider out safely,” Bruggeman explains. He emphasizes that the driver was not trapped.
The driver was then taken by ambulance to the hospital in Groningen. This happened under police escort. The medical team informed Bruggeman that this was necessary due to events around the city such as the Groningen Marathon.
Today, races take place on the track in various classes with stock cars. At the time of the accident, according to Bruggeman, there were a few hundred people in the audience.
