The DeltaWing's Awesome Rolex 24 Ends After Smashing Into Stationary Car On Track

After many difficult race weekends, the DeltaWing had turned everything around to dominate the Rolex 24. Unfortunately, its race was ended by a stationary car on track

Darren Cassey

31 Jan 2016

Today’s Rolex 24 at Daytona was supposed to be all about the Ford GT’s return to endurance racing, but the DeltaWing was rather stealing the show. Thanks to heroics from British driver Katherine Legge, the DeltaWing surged from last place (it didn’t qualify due to poor weather) to first in the Prototype category.

Even after Legge stalled the car after a pit stop, she pushed back into the lead, and after a penalty later in the racing for spinning the wheels while the car was raised in the pits, it was still pushing on strong. That was until it smashed into the back of a stationary car stranded on track at turn one with Andy Meyrick at the wheel.

There have been question marks over race control’s handling of the situation, since the stranded car was in the middle of the track in the middle of a corner, with only one waved yellow flag to warn approaching drivers - there were no flashing yellow lights further up the track, and a full course yellow wasn’t called until after the DeltaWing had crashed.

It’s a shame to see such a unique vehicle having a successful weekend cut short by such an unfortunate event, but Legge’s stint showed the promise of the lightweight DeltaWing. The future’s looking bright for the American setup.

Comments

It was so sad to see of all the cars to hit it, it had to be the delta wing, I was sitting right at turn one and saw the prototype c stopped my heart stopped when I saw the delta wing coming off the bank flat out.

I was very sad when the deltawing crashed out. I have always been a big fan of them and they were finally getting some pace. I swear I turned around from the tv for 5 min and i came back to find it gone. :-( Can’t wait to see how they do next time.