Richmond Hill man charged after stabbing at Cayuga racetrack

A Grimsby man is recovering at home after being stabbed at an auto racing event over the weekend. Now he’s expressing concern for the safety and security of people who go to these races.

Andrew Burns is back home with his fiancé, and thinking about taking time off from his Given Zero clothing vendor business after a violent confrontation Saturday night.

Burns and his fiancé say they were trying to operate their vendor booth at the Toronto Motorsports Park in Cayuga when the violence broke out.

“I ran over. This guy had a retractable blade. He went for Tina and the vendor, when I got there he was coming back towards me from behind,” said Burns.

Burns says he was stabbed in the stomach and needed stitches.

The incident happened during a drag racing event at the park.

Burns says there were two cars parked in the area set aside for his vendor tent.

He says the owner was hostile when people asked him to move the cars. And Burns’ fiancé Tina Reizgys says she asked the park operators for help but didn’t get any. Then she says the man threatened her.

“He was holding a knife in his hand or what I presumed was a knife, because it was a silver object. And he pushed the button and a blade came out and that is when I had screamed ‘do you have a knife? Did you just pull a knife on me?’” said Reizgys.

“I just remember running. I remember getting him from behind. I remember taking him down. But then somebody pulled me off of him and that’s when all of this kind of blurred out,” said Burns.

He realized he’d been stabbed.

He’s recovering and Cayuga OPP have charged a 34-year-old Richmond Hill man with assault with a weapon.

Burns says his concern is that he says there was no security despite the massive racing event.

“This is Nitro Nationals. Cayuga advertises this as their biggest event of the year and there was zero security there. Thousands and thousands of people,” said Burns.

The race track managers insisted there was security and that security guards got to the scene as the fight was ending.

And they say Burns and his fiancé were the ones who were aggressive.

But no one from the race track would go on camera.

Burns and his fiancé say they’d like the race track to cover their lost income from the stabbing.

The man charged in the stabbing is due in court in Cayuga later this month.

READ MORE: One person in hospital after stabbing in Stoney Creek