Thread: A Bad Crash

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Originally Posted by Ken Thurm

Thanks for all the well wishes. They thought at first he was going to lose a arm, but doesn't seem to be the case now. He is doing much better.
Pat, it has a bolt in funny car cage he puts in when he would race it. I first thought that it might be a good idea if he would of had it in but changed my mind thinking about it, he may of had more serious head trauma getting rattled around in it with out a helmet on.
Ken

yep i under stand that well .it just looks very bad upside down .very lucky guy .the lord just did not want him yet

Ken please tell him for me I wish him all the best.When things like this happen makes you think.

I have a buddy here in NZ that always worn a full face helmet when driving long distance in his T bucket. I'm guilty of giving him a hard time about wearing the helmet but he believed that it had multiply advantages,eg,keeping the bugs out of ones mouth/nose, easier on the eyes,and most important.....the BIG IF SOMETHING WENT WRONG.

WOW ..... that doesn't look good. I glad to see he's already on the road to recovery & didn't loose any limbs. That just doesn't look good.

Someone must have been watch'n out for him.

Any news or info as to what actually failed?

I'm sure the drag race inspired frame didn't hurt him having it. Door bars look intact.

REGS

Yep that wind can get very strong inbetween hills and mountains. When you come from behind a hill and that wind hits you it can knock you for a loop.
I know the wife and I would allways leave our CB. on when we drove cross country in our big truck.
Many times that CB got us ready for bad road conditions ahead of us.
We had some good friends that rearended another big truck in a bad sand storm and were crushed to death in the cab of thier truck.
We also got on black ice from time to time and when we would come to a open spot inbetween two hills the wind would hit the big truck and blow them side ways on the ice in to the ditches. Many times we had been in a far lane trying to anticapate the wind on ice and get blow clear acrossed the other lanes. So I know the wind can really mess with some of them small cars even on a good day. Speedy recovery to your friend, hope all goes well for him and his family.
Kurt

Thank you all again, he will appreciate all your kind and thoughtful remarks. This is the kind of thing that really slows me down. Someone left a post on here about having there family in the car and something like this happening. My grandson rides in the rumble seat, he loves it in there, but last year I almost got rear ended on the freeway I stop letting ride back there. As silly as this may sound, now when we go on longer trips my wife follows me in her car with my grandson with her. Then when we get there they all ride with me. The guy that almost hit me stopped 4 feet from the back of my car and he was sideways, I thought it was over.
again the reason for posting all this with the photo's is hopefully, to make more people aware of using proven parts on there builds and check everything often.
Thank you all again.
Ken

A little up date- He has a broken neck that will be operated on I think this week, crushed artery, 3 broken ribs, a very mangled arm.
Keep him in your prayers.
Thanks,
Ken

It's never good when someone in our sport is injured, and I do not know the man, but the folks I know who do know him aren't that surprised.
If a "gust of wind" blew (only) his car off the road, wouldn't one wonder about the stability of the car's construction/design? or was there actually another contributing factor to the wreak?
I wish him a speedy and full recovery, but also hope the true reason for the crash is addressed.

I'm just sayin'

OC

devasting accident .. iv`e been most lucky that iv`e not been killed in wrecks as i been greatly intoxicated in some of my rides and dont remember how i even got home

If a "gust of wind" blew (only) his car off the road, wouldn't one wonder about the stability of the car's construction/design? or was there actually another contributing factor to the wreak?

This has a chassis build by pro stock builder Gary Hanson so I doub't it was unstable.
From what I heard- the wind blew hard & he dropped a rear tire on the dirt shoulder & lost it.

Looks to me to be some type of torsion bar suspension----and the whole front ---is missing???? I would bet that there was a failure and then chain reaction

verry sad to hear what happened to him . i was at del-mar and looked at that car , i hope the best for him .

on the other side we all need to think about saftey in these cars ! i have seen first hand how a streetrod will brake apart in a crash , now i think about that when i build it . and seatbelts save lives !

.
If a "gust of wind" blew (only) his car off the road, wouldn't one wonder about the stability of the car's construction/design? or was there actually another contributing factor to the wreak?


i was supprised at the wind at del-mar , we live in the midwest tornado alley and we dont have sustained gusts like they have .

Originally Posted by Ken Thurm

Thanks for all the well wishes. They thought at first he was going to lose a arm, but doesn't seem to be the case now. He is doing much better.
Pat, it has a bolt in funny car cage he puts in when he would race it. I first thought that it might be a good idea if he would of had it in but changed my mind thinking about it, he may of had more serious head trauma getting rattled around in it with out a helmet on.
Ken

That sounds really good that his arm can be saved. Both of my arms were messed up in a work injury but at least I have them. I hope he continues to improve.

It may get to the point that our old cars will have to have a roll cage if we are going to drive them with today’s traffic on long runs. Accidents are going to happen. When our first grandchild was in his car seat in the back we were on a 4 lane highway keeping up with traffic, all of a sudden a car in front makes a left turn and traffic had to brake to keep from having a big pile up. The 18 wheel truck behind us was coming up on us, his tires were smoking and my wife was driving. I told her to get off the road fast! Lucky she didn't ask why because the trucker smoked the tires right past us. He threw up his hand thanking us for getting out of the way. This was a late model car with all of the safety features but it would not have held up to the truck if we hadn’t got out of the way. Things can happen so fast but the old cars are going to have to have some kind of protection if we are going to drive them. The newer cars have antilock brakes, side impact bags, and front bags. It just really makes you think.

Richard

Originally Posted by lotsatoys

, and I do not know the man, but the folks I know who do know him aren't that surprised.

OC

First lets cut "the owner" some slack here, or at least until he heals back up and is out of the hospital. That's a pretty strong "second hand information statement" from someone that does not have the nerve to "sign their own post", IMO.

This was a well built car, that has run well into the 8's, at close to 160MPH in the quarter mile. The car has been around for a long time and all that have seen it agree, it's was impressive. It was not a thrown together car with marginal design, and equipment. I for one, and I'd bet ALL THE BUILDERS on this site are very interested to find out what really caused this crash, road conditions, a component failure, or maybe a driver error, maybe a combination of all three? We all need to learn from this and build better and safer cars. We might even find that he lived through this accident "because of the lower cage" built into the car only time will tell.

In any case lets not start pointing fingers, this site is better than that.