A man suffered life-threatening injuries during a race event Thursday at the Isanti County Fair, leading medics to airlift him from the scene.
Fair officials announced the injury in a social media post, explaining that the man’s vehicle was registered for a grandstand event that night when a collision injured him.
He was airlifted to North Memorial Health Hospital in Robbinsdale. Fair officials said no new information was available, and the Isanti County Sheriff’s office said further updates would come from fair officials since the incident happened on private property.
Officials later announced that Saturday’s “Night of Chaos,” a grandstand event where drivers try to leap over abandoned vehicles, has been cancelled.
Thursday evening’s scheduled grandstand event was called Night of Destruction, which involved vehicles that race around a dirt track for a trophy and prize money. Those vehicles sometimes collide with others, but fair rules prohibit intentionally hitting other vehicles.
Travis Rosauer, 29, witnessed parts of the crash Thursday and took pictures before fair officials asked attendees to leave. Rosauer said the crash began moments into one of the final races for Night of Destruction.
“All the V8 [vehicles] were starting to pile together. I was on one end of the track where the starting line was and they got to that first turn, so it was hard for me to see at first, but you could hear the crowd at the end screaming,” Rosauer said, adding that the injured driver’s truck landed upside down and its roof was “crushed pretty hard.”
Moments later, Rosauer saw fire crews take cutting shears and the Jaws of Life to pull the man from the truck.
