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Thick Nylon Rope Falls, Injures 10 Fans At Charlotte Motor Speedway

Ten fans were injured last night at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Three were taken to hospitals and later released. They were hurt after a thick nylon rope that was part of an overhead camera system fell over the grandstands.

Randy Faw was supposed to be sitting where the thick rope fell.

He and his family drove from Virginia to watch the Coca-Cola 600. Their tickets weren’t next to each other.

“I had been sitting right over there where it fell,” Faw said, pointing a few rows over in the grandstands. “And I moved over here to sit with my wife and daughter.”

He and his family were not hurt. As part of FOX’s broadcast, the network had a camera that could glide on thick ropes or cables over the track and grandstands. FOX has not determined how it broke.

When it did, Debra Faw heard yelling.

“And when we looked up, the cable was hanging from where it’s attached here,” Faw said. “It came across, and it was down in the crowd.”

Faw said it crossed in front of them about 10 seats from where she was. It also reached down onto the track and damaged several cars, causing a nearly 30-minute race delay.

Faw said at least one NASCAR driver ran over the thick rope.

“When that car came by going so fast, it ran over it,” She said. “But it was enough (that) it got wrapped in the axel and stretched, and then it snapped and what came back is what hit people,” she said.

Faw said it all happened so fast that it was tough to make out exactly where the rope snapped. But she said the people injured were sitting behind her and higher up in her section.

Early Monday morning, a speedway spokesman said all 10 fans who were hurt – including the three who went to the hospital – have been treated and released.

FOX said in a statement it’s planning a full investigation of what went wrong, and the network doesn’t plan to use that camera system again.