I hope you noticed that last month's Western New Yorker didn't arrive
as it should have. The Editor had every intention of producing the
June issue but didn't arrive home from the races in time to meet the
deadline. After ten years of trying to bring home other people's cars
in good condition (and being quite successful at it if I say so
myself) I took my own car and threw it away for the second time in as
many tries.

This time the race was at Connellsville Airport south of
Pittsburgh. This was to be the second National to be held there and my
first trip to this track. The repairs from the IRP crash were
completed and the car drove really well except that I had two corded
tires and all four had flat spots with no tire truck in
attendance. After qualifying I had one tire that still had rubber on
it so my options were to grind down the rains or use them as they
were. Debi and I went to dinner and I was seriously hoping for rain.

The rain showed up Sunday morning as ordered but it could have been a
little more of a drizzle than it was. This storm was serious. The
first practice group was gridding up and I hid under the tarp until I
heard the whistles. When I arrived, I noticed that I was the only SRF
there and instead of understanding why, I could only thank my luck as
I'd have the only good rain info for the race. I was on my way to the
front!

The group was made of all the open wheelers and sports racers and the
mist was very hard to see through. Cars appeared only feet ahead and I
surely didn't want to hit someone who had spun and stalled. I also
found that 008's suck in puddles and these didn't have the autocross
compound to help them. Nevertheless, I don't remember having anyone go
by on my way toward finding the highest spots available on the course
and as a bonus, my lines were so far from everyone else's, the mist
problem was reduced considerably. I was sure that, as the only one
practicing, the race was mine for sure. By the time the others would
find these lines, I'd be long gone!

I remember passing a FV and not wanting to chop in front too soon,
this was just practice, I went a little wide on the grippiest corner
on the course. The corner set up for start/finish and the chicane and
was only 30 degrees or so. I was already looking ahead because the
previous lap, three cars had spun at the first turn and blocked the
track. At about 27 of the required 30 degrees, my car went straight,
no plow, no warning. Boy, was that a surprise! I looked to the left
and right and everywhere looked bad, but not as bad as straight
ahead. Straight ahead were five people behind barriers for the
start/finish flagging station and I couldn't change direction at all.

The nose apparently scooped all the tires straight up and after the
fiberglass, radiator and some tin, the strongest part of the frame hit
the barrier pretty square and stopped hard. My left heel slipped off
the frame but my right took an awful amount of force since it was
pushing the brake so hard already and broke. The tingle I felt at
first confirmed the worst but I wiggled everything and everything
wiggled back so I felt really relieved about that and decided to
knuckle down and get to work. There was some serious crying and
screaming to be done and I was just the right guy for the
job. Unfortunately for me, a fractured sternum made it too hard to get
a good breath so my performance was more subdued than I felt the
situation warranted and I was reduced to whimpering and complaining,
things I can do fairly well even without these circumstances.

I asked to have my helmet and shoes removed and the workers complied
and then extracted me through the huge open area that the SRF chassis
supplies around the driver. I am sure that the room and lack of a roof
helped them do such a good job of getting me out so well. On the trip
to the local hospital, my neck hurt like hell and the back of my head
kept bouncing on the backboard. OW OW OW.

They took a couple hundred x-rays and put me back in the truck to go
to Pittburgh. I had a broken neck ("Don't do that, You'll break your
neck!" "Wear clean underwear") and two more down low were "Blown" and
"Smashed" respectively. We had the choice of two hospitals to be moved
to and Debi and I decided to go to Allegheny General because we knew
one of the neurosurgeons there, he had slipped some pornography into
his presentation at a conference we had been at and figured he was
someone we could work with. Meanwhile, I had a 45-mile trip to look
forward to and that sore spot from the first trip wasn't going to get
any better.

So, 6-17-97. I'm home, the cast should come off soon and the Halo and
sheepskin-lined plastic brace that goes from my neck to way below my
waist should come off around "Labour" Day. Every nurse and doctor has
commented on how lucky I was to have had trained, careful people there
to get me out of the car and delivered to them the way I was. Every
part was in place so no surgery was required, just the immobilizing of
the pieces so they wouldn't move. Things could be better but they most
certainly could have been worse. Much, much worse. Thanks to all of
you workers who dared to go to an event the tire truck didn't think
was worthy of its time. Next time I'll be sure to walk the track, even
if it means getting up a little earlier and getting wet. Like I've
always told everyone else, you can't go really fast if you don't know
where you're going.