Tesla Driver Gets Lost, Drives Onto Track During Motorcycle Race
An American Federation of Motorcyclists race got red-flagged for a highly unusual obstruction on the track: a Tesla Model Y that was driving in the opposite direction of race traffic before officials stopped it. The Tesla had somehow entered the hot track at Buttonwillow Raceway Park and was, from its perspective, slowly driving down the right side as if it were just another road, reports The Drive. This appears to be a human mistake, not deliberate road rage or a Full Self-Driving malfunction.
The errant Tesla entered the track during Race 7 of the final round of the season. The entire race was livestreamed, and much of the incident was caught on video. Race officials called for a red flag, which brings the race to a halt and clears the track, as soon as they spotted the Tesla on the track. One official stopped the car and gave the driver a stern talking-to while waving motorcycle traffic past. After the track was clear, a UTV came out and led the lost Tesla back to the pit area, where the driver got yet another earful from race officials before being led away.
Buttonwillow has a Tesla Supercharger facility at the north end of the track, easily accessible from nearby Interstate 5. This is likely what the Model Y was looking for when it got lost. It appears to be just a couple of quick turns off the I-5 exit, and nowhere near any active part of the track. The latest Street View images from January 2024 show no Supercharger just yet, so we don't know how well, or poorly, the Supercharger is marked.
The jokes write themselves
It would be all too easy to turn this into yet another Tesla hit piece, talking about bad Tesla drivers or how terrible Full-Self Driving is. The livestream race commentator certainly got in on the fun:
There has been a sideways comment that may have been made near me that Elon Musk is out to get us. First, our Starlink has gone down, and we are running this entire program off of Kevin Fanaday's hotspot cell phone. Yes, in fact we are running this program on a cell phone. And then a Tesla has now tried to stop our race. And so we think Elon has a personal vendetta against the AFM.
This particular driver certainly made some poor decisions that could have caused the racers a very bad day. Tesla drivers have a reputation for this, but the driver of any car could have made such a mistake. I also have to question how the Tesla was able to get on a hot track in the first place. While tracks have access points around them for emergency vehicles to enter quickly if needed, these should all be blocked off while the track is hot.
I've participated in many track days myself, both on two and four wheels. To me, the best part of these events is that you can drive/ride harder and faster than you should on a public road because it's a closed, controlled environment. The corner workers will wave flags to warn you of hazards ahead, and in the absence of those flags, you know you can go as fast as your vehicle and skills will allow. No child is going to chase a stray ball onto the track, random wildlife won't (usually) cross in front of you, and random Teslas aren't going to drive right at you. Except that's exactly what happened here. The corner workers did an excellent job getting the situation under control once the Tesla was on the track, but it shouldn't have been able to get on the track in the first place.