The multi-car pileup that resulted in injury to NASCAR fans was pulled from YouTube on Saturday night.
In the video, race cars can be seen flying into the air as debris from those vehicles shot towards NASCAR fans sitting in the stands at Daytona. During the accident, a tire from one vehicle managed to land in the stands.
While the YouTube video quickly appeared online after the accident, NASCAR officials asked that it be removed.
The race organization did not request the removal because of standard copyright issues. Instead, the race organization issued the following statement:
“The fan video of the wreck on the final lap of today’s NASCAR Nationwide Series race was blocked on YouTube out of respect for those injured in today’s accident. Information on the status of those fans was unclear and the decision was made to err on the side of caution with this very serious incident.”
Shortly after NASCAR had the video taken down, it was placed back on the website. YouTube then told The Washington Post :
“Our partners and users do not have the right to take down videos from YouTube unless they contain content which is copyright infringing, which is why we have reinstated the videos.”
The footage was shot by a fan who was attending the NASCAR race at Daytona on Saturday afternoon.
Following the race, the NASCAR crash at Daytona quickly began to trend on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks as fans discussed Daytona’s track safety. Other fans asked for updates about the crash while details were sparse.
While NASCAR posts notices in which it claims fans cannot record any part of a NASCAR event, enforcing such rules can be difficult.
Here is the NASCAR crash video on YouTube:
