A NASCAR Crew Member Stayed Very, Very Relaxed After Realizing He Was On Fire

The pit are of a NASCAR race can be a dangerous place to work. Cars are speeding in and out, and crew members’ biggest concern is speed, which, as one might imagine, can lead to some pretty ugly incidents.

While every role in the pit has its own set of responsibilities and dangers, few seem more taxing or terrifying than the gasman, the member who holds a 95-pound, shoulder-mounted tank of gas to refuel the car as quickly as possible. They wear fireproof suits and aprons, but 95 pounds of race-grade fuel could make short work of those safety measures under the wrong circumstances.

Fortunately, when fire struck in driver Cole Custer’s pit at the Fitzgerald Glider 300, the gasman didn’t panic. In fact, he hardly seemed to concern himself at all with the matter.

He took a goose step away from the fire to separate his leg from the danger, then waitsed a beat until an official with a fire extinguisher stepped up to put out the flames on his suit. You can see at the end the gasman gestures to the official to convey “You missed a spot” on his left foot. After that shot, he was in the clear and went back to business as usual — no worse for the wear.

The gasman may have remained preternaturally calm during the ordeal, but don’t let that belie the danger of a fire in the pit. It quickly became a non-event in this race, but others working in pit crews haven’t been so lucky.