By Garrett Stack

The Herald Bulletin

ANDERSON — A pit crew member who was injured Tuesday at the Anderson Speedway lies in painful, but stable condition after surgery yesterday.

Curt Stein, a 43-year-old Greenfield native, is a member of the pit crew for Dave Ecoff’s No. 15 car.

Stein was inflating a tire in preparation for the Redbud 300, which was to take place that evening, when the entire tire exploded off of the car, severely injuring his left arm.

“It sounded like a bomb,” Ecoff said. “The wheel dismounted and just blasted off.”

Stein was taken via helicopter to Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, where he underwent surgery Tuesday evening to repair his wounded arm.

“So far he’s gone through one surgery and he’s getting some feeling back in his fingers,” Ecoff said. “But it’s still an iffy thing and it will probably take several more surgeries to repair all the damage.”

Ecoff, a Greenfield native, raced in the CRA Super Series until 2001. His 16-year-old son Damon now drives the car. This is his rookie season in the series.

Ecoff claims he has never witnessed an accident like the one that injured Stein.

“It was something I’ve never seen before,” he said. “When I go to the track, I worry about my boy, but now I’ll have to spread out my worry to the whole crew. We were lucky no one else was injured.”

According to Anderson Speedway President Rick Dawson, it is still not clear what caused the accident, but human error may be the culprit.

“It doesn’t look like there was anything defective with the tire or the rim,” Dawson said. “So whether he put too much air in there or got it cockeyed, I don’t know.”

Dawson said that it is typical for crew members to put extra air in the tires to get them to “bead and seal” in preparation for a race.