4-car crash on opening lap in Zolder

The carnage started early in Zolder, Belgium Friday morning. A 4-car accident on the warm-up lap of Friday practice at Zolder, Belgium severely damaged the car of local favorite Jan Heylen. Our cameras were rolling when the cars started out on their first lap ever at Zolder. On the backstraight, between turns 4 and 5, Dan Clarke came flying past Justin Wilson some 50 MPH faster than everyone else was going, clipped Justin Wilson's right-front tire and that turned Clarke's car across the bow of Wilson and he hit Heylen at a right angle sending both cars into the outside wall. Meanwhile Paul Tracy hit Justin Wilson from behind as Wilson slowed because of the accident.

Afterwards a livid Heylen blamed Dan Clarke for the accident. "What the fu%#! What the fu%#! said an obviously disappointed Heylen who saw his 'home' race before his countryman get ruined before it even started.

Wilson told us that, "We were still going slow on our warm-up lap and I went right to pass Jan [Heylen] and Dan Clarke came flying up from behind on the right about 50 mph faster with two wheels on the grass, clipped my right-front wheel, which in turn sent Clarke hard into Jan. I don't know what Dan was thinking," said Wilson.

Clarke had another side of the story saying that "Wilson moved over in front of me and I had nowhere to go but on the grass." Clarke didn't want to take blame for the accident but as Heylen and Wilson put it, "where was he going in such a hurry on the warm-up lap? We were still on cold tires. He doesn't think. He just doesn't think." Mark C. reporting from Zolder.

(L to R) Crash photos, Wilson talking to Conquest team owner Eric Bachelart and Jan Heylen

(L to R) Heylen's and Wilson's damaged race cars