Daytona 24 Hours race halted after serious accident
The Daytona 24 Hours race was called to a temporary halt on Saturday after a very serious accident between the Daytona Prototype driven by Memo Gidley and the GT Le Mans class Ferrari of Matteo Malucelli.
The latter driver had been removed from his car quite quickly but it took some time for Gidley to be extricated from the badly damaged wreckage of his vehicle when the race was red-flagged. Both were then immediately transported to the nearby Halifax hospital.
Gidley, in the much faster GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing prototype which had been qualified on pole by Alex Gurney, hit the Risi Competzione Ferrari very heavily, after leaving the International Horseshoe (turn three) before the kink at turn four.
Malucelli's car appeared to have lost drive and he had pulled over to the drivers' left when he was hit by Gidley, who would have been looking for maximum acceleration as the prototypes take the kink flat out, but may have been unsighted by the sun which was beginning to set and shines directly into the cockpit at this part of the circuit.
Gidley was on his 92nd lap after 2 hours and 49 minutes in the race, which consists of 67 cars across four different classes of varying top speeds.
Initially, a full course caution was announced, but shortly afterwards, with rescue workers working on Gidley's car, it was red-flagged. The last time the race was halted was in 2004.
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