At every track in America at some time or another, from the Indy and Daytona 500's to the local Saturday night racers, there has, at one time, been a close call of some sorts. From flying tires just clearing spectators to pit crew members jumping out of the way of a spinning car, every track has them every once in a while. But there have been some close calls that have stood out more than others in a way.One such example was at the Fairbury, Illinois Motordrome in September of 1940. Just as a midget race took the green flag, every light in the place went out. As the cars were screeching to a stop trying to avoid a disaster, tow trucks with high beams on went out onto the track. A few minutes later, the lights came back on. As the cars were being push started again, rolling down the backstretch, driver Wally Zale noticed there was a body lying in the middle of the track. As the cars came to a stop and an ambulance was called, it turns out the body was a spectator who hadn't paid to see the races and was hanging out on a limb from a tree over the track. When the lights went out, he slipped off of the limb he was hanging on and fell to the track. Although having a pretty hard time explaining how he got there, he's lucky in more ways than one.On May 1, 1955, 2000 people scrambled to safety when the grandstands caught fire and collapsed at the Greensboro, NC Fairgrounds. When the dust settled, although hard to believe, there were only some minor injuries. Back in 1974, two close calls come to mind. At the Syracuse mile in New York, Gary Bettenhausen of Indy car fame took a hair raising flip in a sprint car that was so violent he completely left the track and crashed through the roof of a concession stand. Amazingly, no one was injured. At the Auburn Fairgrounds in Auburn, California on May 21st, the feature race was held up when a live mortar shell was found lying on the backstretch.One place that you could always count on for close calls was every Memorial Day Weekend at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. In the first 500 in 1911, Joe Jagersberger's mechanic C. L. Anderson literally fell out of the car onto the track on lap 87, causing a crash with drivers swerving to miss him, which, fortunately, they did. Then there was the 1927 Indy 500. On lap 24, Norm Batten's car erupted into flames. What could have been disaster, Batten stood up in the cockpit of his racer and drove the flaming car the entire length of the pits before jumping to safety. This was another close call that could have resulted in somebody being killed if it were not for Batten's heroic actions.One of the most amazing brushes with death took place at the Langhorne, Pennsylvania one-mile dirt oval on September 1, 1957. Charlie Mussleman was running wide open in his cage less sprint car when he hit a rut on the backstretch of the track. As the car took a series of end over end flips, the Pennsylvania tavern owners seat belt broke. During the heart stopping crash where the car was high enough that other racers went under it as it was flipping, Mussleman's body could be seen sailing through the air above the car. The crash was so intense that famed photographer Walter T. Chernokal, who shot the complete crash from beginning to end, wound up with his pictures of the accident being published around the world, including being published in Time and Life magazines. When the ambulance crew arrived to pick up what was certain to be a corpse, they were astonished to find Mussleman only suffered a mild concussion. That has got to be about as close to being killed, as any driver would ever want to come.In the late 1980's, Pete Wright was the jack man for Terry Labonte on Junior Johnson's team. As Terry came down pit road, Wright jumped off the pit wall with the jack just as Labonte slid into his pit. He hit Pete so hard that it tore the wheels off of the jack, sending him up and over the hood, windshield and back of the car, landing on the ground. What could have been disaster resulted in a few broken ribs.But there is one incident that really makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck. It was May 30, 1964 and the Indy 500 was just getting ready to get the green flag. Eddie Sachs, the clown Prince of Indy car drivers who once marched down the Indy front stretch with the Gordon Pipers Band in his driving uniform, was ready to start in his eight Indy 500. Sachs always drove with a lemon around his neck. Before each race, he would punch a hole through a lemon, run a string through it and put it around his neck so during the race, when he would get dry mouth, he'd suck on the lemon. When the green flag dropped, the cars were off in record pace. Coming out of the fourth turn before two laps was completed, rookie Dave MacDonald spun into the inside retaining wall. With a full tank of fuel, his car exploded into a huge fireball where he then shot back out onto the track directly in front of Sachs and the rest of the field. Eddie, with nowhere to go, crashed into MacDonald. Both Sachs and MacDonald were killed instantly. Also involved in the accident were Norm Hall, Ronnie Duman, Bobby Unser and Johnny Rutherford. Of all the cars involved, Rutherford was the only driver who was able to guide his car back to the pits.After arriving back to his pit stall, Rutherford's crew wanted to survey the damage. But when his chief mechanic opened up the hood on his roadster, the entire crew was aghast as to what they saw. Lying in the belly pan of Rutherford's car, next to the engine, was the lemon that Eddie Sachs had around his neck. Johnny Rutherford couldn't have said it any better in a 1991 interview when, describing the accident and finding the lemon in his car, said "NOW THAT'S CLOSE."