By Jessie Burchette
jburchette@salisburypost.com
A go-kart racer doing practice laps was seriously injured Saturday evening at Millbridge Speedway.
The man was identified Sunday at Jerry Blakesley.
He was transported by Rowan EMS to Rowan Regional Medical Center and then airlifted to Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem.
Rusty Alexander, chief of the Locke Fire Department, which responded to the scene, said the man sustained head injuries.
Track operator Melvin McAllister said the man was in his 40s and most likely from Kannapolis.
“He was a newcomer … It was the first or second time he had been there,” McAllister said Sunday. “He came with a friend, Charles Beaver. He races in the same class.”
He was set to race in the “clone class,” a class that features karts with an overhead valve.
McAllister said during the practice time, the man hit a tire barrier along the track and flipped over.
McAllister said an emergency medical technician who stays at the track for the Saturday night races checked the man.
“He was talking, he wanted to get up. He wanted a cigarette,” McAllister said. He said the man may have injured his hip and collar bone.
McAllister was attempting to contact friends or family of the injured man late Sunday to ascertain his condition.
McAllister said serious accidents at the track are rare. “We haven’t had an ambulance there in three years.”