'Safety car'. The phrase is so gentle, so reassuring. A vehicle just to keep everyone else on the level.

Smash-cut to this weekend's NASCAR Mexico Series finale, which saw...well, not that.

The No. 22 Quaker State Ford of Santiago Tovar, running for HO Speed Racing, was rounding out a middling season at the season-closing Puebla 110 when he buried his car in a tire barrier, getting nudged off track a lap and a half after a caution restart.

A wreck isn't exactly a rare event at a low-banked oval, and officials at the Miguel E Abed International Raceway dispatched marshals and a safety vehicle to his position.

NASCAR Mexico fans see dramatic season end

However, a video taken at the track shows one set of track personnel exiting their own vehicle to run over to the stricken No. 22 car and make sure its driver was safe, when another car entered the shot and slid straight into the race car.

Nobody was hurt in the incident, with all the track personnel able to stay clear of the impact and those in the car able to walk away, but just a couple of seconds more could have turned an ultimately harmless mistake into tragedy.

Not content with one piece of drama, the championship race itself finished in chaotic style with Championship 4 contenders Julio Rejon and Max Gutierrez battling it out on the final lap for third place (and the title).

However, an enormous wreck on the final corner of a green-white-checker finish mean that Alex de Alba was able to pick his way through the wreckage into fourth, just ahead of Gutierrez, to claim a maiden championship.