HAMPTON, Ga. — Bayley Currey suddenly found himself with a sunroof at about 170 mph in Saturday’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
NASCAR will take the roof back to its Research and Development Center in Concord, North Carolina.
Part of Currey’s roof flew off his truck after he said debris damaged the front windshield.
“We just hit a piece of debris down the front(stretch) very early, like stage 1 I’d say, and from there it started kind of flapping a little bit,” Currey said after taking his truck to the garage. “Then, like any piece of metal and you bend it back and forth so many times, it’s going to break.
“I knew it was coming. I could hear it. I looked up and I could see daylight and the truck bogged down real big.”
Currey said he wasn’t sure of the debris he hit.
After the debris hit the windshield, Currey said: “It pulled the windshield down and then when it did that, it broke a couple of tabs whenever it hit. Then when it did that, it started flapping.”
What was it like to have a sunroof at about 170 mph?
“I could feel it getting colder in the truck,” Currey said. “Then it got real bright.”
Currey finished 31st in a 33-truck race won by Kyle Busch.