Howdy, It's been a while.

[Dreamweaver]

Hey Gents and Lady's

Been a while since I been on the forum. Nothing new to post on the build because since I got the lug nut covers on it I have not touched it. I haven't even been in the same room with it for over a month now.

I went on a week vacation. came back from that and worked all week. Then I went to a family reunion for the next weekend then every thing went to ****!!!!!

Some of you might remember that my family races during the summer. My brother drives what is called a Ford Focus Midget. This is like a 3/4 size sprint car that is powered by a Roush/Yates built Ford Focus 4cyl motor that runs on Methanol.




My brother drives it and I make and keep it running. We race it at Rockey Mountain Raceway in Salt Lake which is a 3/8 mile high banked oval that's a little egg shaped on one end (turns 1 and 2) It is 11° in the turns and 7° on the straights.

Well Saturday the 21st they raced while I was at My family reunion in the Utah mountain out of cell service. When I got back into cell service Sunday I got several messages from everyone telling me to call there has been an accident.

A little back story. At the end of the 2010 season Guy (My Brother) was in a wreck in Irwindale Ca on Thanksgiving day and it destroyed the chassis beyond repair (Guy was ok in that one) well we had to buy another chassis and since they stopped making the brand we have in 2007 we had to buy a used one. Well we found one that an ex-racer had sitting in his garage and we knew that it had been wrecked and repaired. The man told us that it was repaired by a compitant builder and it was straight and ready to go.

Now back to the 21st. Guy was racing hard with one of the oldest drivers in the class. This man was a darn good and very clean driver. They both had been side by side for three laps and when they came around out of turn two (the egg shaped, tighter of the turns) the other guy pushed up into Guy and being open wheel cars all **** broke loose. Both of them went up, Guy hit the wall at about 90mph and then Jeff hit him when the tires hit Guy being pinched between the wall and Jeff went airborn and did a 180 and then slammed the wall again with the left side of the car.

The nearest we can figure by looking at the car, when he hit the wall the first time on the right side of the car a total of 8 welds just came apart. Now to clarify what I mean by came apart. There was NO penetration on half of the weld. Every one of the welds that came apart had the weld on one tube and nothing on the mating tube.

Well as it happens two of the welds that came apart were the ones on both ends of the tube that the back of the seat was bolted to and also this is were the shoulder belts were connected to. When they broke Guy was basically only held in the car by his lap belt. because of this he got thrown around in the car and hit his head on one of the chassis bars hard enough to crack his helmet all the way through.

He was unconscious when they pulled him from the car and was rushed to the hospital where they put him in a medically induced coma for 2 day. The did a CT scan on him and found that his brain was swelling on the right side. Then Sunday morning they did another CT and found that the swelling had increases and there was a slight bleed.

He was taken off the medications to put him in the coma on Sunday night and did not wake up for more than a few seconds at a time till Wednesday afternoon.

As of today he is in rehab and learning how to walk again. He has all of his motor functions, he has his memory and sounds like he is drunk when he talks. but at least he can talk and can remember. The Doctors say he should recover 100% as far as his motor skills are concerned. The only thing that we are worried about at this time is when he is 100% awake he can carry on a conversation in the here and now but when he gets tired he can be talking to you about here and now one second then out of the blue he talks like he is back in the past. For example he has not drove a truck since 2004 and he will sit there talking to you and then say that he has to get going because he has to deliver his load in LA in the morning. Then when we tell him where he is and that he don't drive anymore sometimes it jars him back to now and sometime he'll fight with you and say your full of S@#T. SO it has been very tense for me lately. I was extremely torn up about it on Sunday because I knew that the only way he could move in the car was if the seat belts failed (Not likely at all) or more likely something I had done when building the car was either done wrong or failed. It was not till I got a look at the car Monday night that I found the failed welds. While I am still upset about what happened at least I can stop blaming my self for it now.

It has not changed his mind about racing, he says he want to rebuild the car for next year although are old man (The money in the team) says not only NO but **** NO. We still have the mini street car that my 16 yr old nephew drives and in fact he is racing tomorrow night, and pop says if Guy wants to (and is able to ) we will build another one of those for him. Me personally I'm done with the racing and I will do what I can to convince them in the same.


On a lighter side I have a new job that is local Mon-Fri day shift 8-10 hrs a day so I can be home every night and still make the same amount I was making.

As for the build I really can't see anything being done on it till the snow starts flying.

Mike

[doodlebug]

Welcome back! I'll call next time I'm in town transporting equipment.
Cheer's, Neil.

[dabears]

I'm glad he's at least still alive! Family comes first! And i'm young yet so I know I'll get to see the final result of the build I hope thinks brighten up soon for ya!

[scalelover]

Sorry to hear about your bro, I hope all goes well with recovery, are they saying anything about the memory lapses possibly being temporary or permanent? Im sure that cant be easy on anyone seems like you would feel kind of helpless , just thinking aout having to go through something like that sends chills down my spine. On a different note congrats on the new job, hope you can settle in and get some time to enjoy the hobby soon.

--Dan

[Dreamweaver]

Originally Posted by doodlebug

Welcome back! I'll call next time I'm in town transporting equipment.
Cheer's, Neil.

Sounds good Neil

Originally Posted by dabears

I'm glad he's at least still alive! Family comes first! And i'm young yet so I know I'll get to see the final result of the build I hope thinks brighten up soon for ya!

Thanks. And I really doubt it will be that long!!

Originally Posted by scalelover

Sorry to hear about your bro, I hope all goes well with recovery, are they saying anything about the memory lapses possibly being temporary or permanent? I'm sure that cant be easy on anyone seems like you would feel kind of helpless , just thinking about having to go through something like that sends chills down my spine. On a different note congrats on the new job, hope you can settle in and get some time to enjoy the hobby soon.

--Dan

Thanks Dan. As for the memory, they can't tell us one way or the other. The hospital let him go to the track last night for a few hours so he could watch my nephew race. For the most part he was there but then there was times when he wasn't. Like my nephew won his heat race and Guy was convinced that he won the main event. He was talking with a friend, and the conversation was current, but at the end of the conversation he tells the guy that he'll have a drink with him after the races. Guy don't drink!!! and he was not going to be there after the races, and he knew he wasn't going to be.

Probably the hardest part for me was when he looked up at me and started crying and said "The bad thing is they probably won't let me drive again", referring to driving the race car.