The Baltimore Grand Prix of the American Le Mans Series is underway, though it's not off to a great beginning with eight cars being taken out before they even crossed the start.
Nobody was seriously injured, but the surviving cars are stopped and waiting on the track for everything to be cleaned up and for the competition to be restarted. Even still, it looks like it's going to be a truncated race:
Street courses are always a bit dicey owing to their narrow tracks, but Baltimore has proven itself especially dangerous for the second year in a row. In 2012, a big pileup was caused right at the first tight corner:
That crash wasn't as bad as this years, but it still shows just how bad it can be. Another angle shows just how quickly the red flag was waved:
Of course, we'll update you if we get any more information about what happened.
UPDATE: The race was waved off once more before finally re-starting as Chris Dyson jumped the gun, but we're not even a lap in and there's already a three-car pileup on Turn 3. With this sprint version of an ALMS race lasting only an hour, this is pretty ridiculous.
UPDATE #2: Dyson just called it "disgraceful" that he could be given a penalty and that he was "disgusted" by it, as this is now a "race of regulations" and he thought he should've gone.
Klaus Graf then followed up with "The other car needs to read the rule book."
Ouch. Ya think?
UPDATE #3: Here's a video of Dyson with his "disgraceful" and "disgusting" complaining. And Klaus using German humor: