Wallace's spotter injured in bike crash.

Earl Barban, mechanic and chief spotter for Rusty Wallace, was involved in a motorcycle accident while en route to the North Carolina Speedway on Thursday night.

According to Barban, he sustained three broken ribs, a punctured lung, lacerated spleen and various cuts and bruises. He was reached in his hospital room Friday afternoon and updated his condition.

"It was right around 8 o'clock last night and I was on my motorcycle going through Ellerbe," said Barban from his hospital bed on Friday afternoon. "I always take the back way to the track and I just came up to a corner too fast and couldn't get it turned. I went off the road and ended up flipping a whole bunch of times. I guess you could call it a racing incident."

Barban, who could be released from the Richmond Memorial Hospital in Rockingham as early as Saturday evening, may still be able to call Sunday's Pop Secret 400 for Wallace, although more physical mechanic duties might be out of the question.

"I ended up in a ditch," he continued. "But there was a car with a camper driving behind me and the guy stopped and stayed with me. He's camping at the track this weekend and, even though he didn't have a cell phone, he stopped the next car that came along and asked them to call 911. All I can say is I'm pretty lucky. It could have been much, much worse."