Thank you Isaac

[StephF]

In the first race on Saturday afternoon at the IT Fest at Mid Ohio, Ed had a pretty significant off course incident at T2. That's at the end of the long straightaway leading into the keyhole. We were running the pro course configuration, so we were cooking going into that turn.
He ended up hitting the tire wall head on, and he hit it hard. Apparently, the tires have some sort of pipe inside the stacks to stiffen them, so they were fairly stiff barrier.
The front end of the car is pushed back several inches. His head bounced off the rollcage in front and to the side. He has two broken ribs, a variety of bruises and general soreness.
He has zero neck pain.
I know I whined to myself a little bit about how much money the HNR systems cost when I made the decision to buy the Issac intermediate. All told, I believe it was about 1k, which included some extra mounting hardware.
It's like insurance; you bitch about buying it, but you are damn glad you did when things go wrong.
It was probably the best money I've ever spent in racing.
I believe that if he hadn't been wearing it, this post might have had vastly different news to tell. Ribs will heal. The car will live again. And thank God we aren't dealing with a broken neck instead.
If you aren't running with a HNR system yet, please, please pull the trigger and do it.
Thank you Greg and Isaac.
Steph

[ITA_honda]

Yeah, I was running in the first group and he burried that thing HARD in to the wall. I didnt know he had broken ribs though...
it could have been worse..

[downingracing]

I was right behind him when he went off. I was shocked not to see a FCY or worse at the end of the back straight. Glad he is going to be OK. Wish I had installed the camera... I remember seeing the hit and thinking "Holy $h!t !!"

[Jim Royal]

I was watching from keyhole. That was one of the worst impacts I've seen (OR HEARD) in recent years. I was very glad to see him moving around in the car. I actually thought to myself that this was a good argument for not using the pro coarse. The tires are very close and the sand trap didn't even slow him down. I am very glad he will be with us to race again.
Get Well Soon!

[Racerlinn]

Steph, it was nice to meet you and Ed this past weekend. Sorry about the bad luck you guys endured. Not the right way to "fix" a tire wall...

[StephF]

I was right behind him when he went off. I was shocked not to see a FCY or worse at the end of the back straight. Glad he is going to be OK. Wish I had installed the camera... I remember seeing the hit and thinking "Holy !t !!"

To be honest, I was taken aback by the response to the incident. Ed told me the impact rang his chimes pretty good. A worker appeared and asked if he was ok. He said yeah I think so (which we all say)
The worker then said, OK, we're going to leave you there. And he left.
He was still in the car, in an impact zone, a bad impact zone. He didn't get assessed. Didn't get asked if he wanted to go to medical, nor was taken to medical.
Which really should have happened.
He got out by himself, crawled through the fence , and stood there the rest of the race.
When they came to pull him out, they pulled the car out, asked if it would start and when it did, they said, good...drive it in.
The coolant was about all gone from it and he had to drive it back to the paddock, not to mention he just went through a hard impact, one where he bounced his head off the rollcage.
I insisted that he get a card started. When he went to do that, the safety steward told him that he refused treatment at the scene.
He was never offered anything at the scene.
Not trying to start anything, but I do think the cheif of F&C should be aware of this so that they can correct that response before it bites them in the ass. I don't know if they had new staff on that station or what. In New England, that hit would have been an automatic trip to medical right away and the car would have been removed so no one else got into it.
The folks we dealt with were by and large wonderful, friendly, the track was awesome and the event (even with this) was great. This was the only major flaw that I found, and thank God it didn't turn out worse. I do plan to somehow let the region know that this happened and ask them to reassess their response to an impact like that.
And, one last note, I really want to thank the people who came to offer help after that, both physical and mental. At one point we had 6 people there saying they were willing to thrash on it and get it straight enough to run the next day. If he hadn't gotten hurt, we might have attempted it. I've seen it before, but I must say, we have the best group of racers on the planet!
Thanks everyone...

[CRallo]

so let me get this straight: he was involved in an impact and he didn't get his free ride in the ambulance?!

joking aside, that's really not cool. No need to be chill about this one Steph! I don't know what protocol actually is out there, but that's not good for the track or the region... They have a signed refusal of treatment right? psh!

AND he had to drive the car back?! possibly damaging it(or himself) worse in the process? insult to injury... in more than one way!

wow... does this surprise anyone else? or are we just spoiled here in the NE?


so now we all know to crank our FI cars with our foot on the floor... "it won't start!" lol

[Seabee]

Unfortunately you had other stories to tell other than, "You should have seen Phil.....".

Glad to hear Ed will heal and fight another day. And you have what seems to be a vast array of Honda stuff.

Hope you guys can make WGI in Sept.

[Ed Funk]

Nice avatar, and I thought you were my friend!

[StephF]

Unfortunately you had other stories to tell other than, "You should have seen Phil.....".

Glad to hear Ed will heal and fight another day. And you have what seems to be a vast array of Honda stuff.

Hope you guys can make WGI in Sept.

Oh we have some of those stories too...If I recall correctly, the waitress at the Roadhouse tried to offer him a children's menu...
And hey! I didn't notice your avatar fully until Ed caught it just now!

[Seabee]

Honda nation has been in front of me all year. So maybe the new avatar will help. At least in my small mind.

And I am sure Steph will have no problem coming up with something similar.

[dickita15]

She could but Miatas are a protected class. Dissing them is considered a hate crime. Some federal rule or such

[CRallo]

She could but Miatas are a protected class. Dissing them is considered a hate crime. Some federal rule or such

Dick, you are my Hero!

[raffaelli]

wow... does this surprise anyone else? or are we just spoiled here in the NE?

We are totally spoiled and fortunate.

[lateapex911]

Steph- Glad Ed's going to be ok in the medium run. I know the ribs can be annoying. I broke a couple at the Glen a few years ago, (and had to the the Swim Across the Sound two weeks later, LOL)...but I think your experience with the corner worker was atypical of SCCA workers nationwide, and certainly here. I'm guessing Ed's response was in such an "even strain" as the figher pilots like to say, that he figured all was ok. We've become accustomed to seeing cars hit hard and watching drivers pop out and wave at the stands, and it's probably desensitized us.

I'd drop a private email to Todd, who's an ace flagger himself, just as an FYI. Sometimes you have to ask twice with race car drivers and be a bit in your face, and that doesn't always match everyone's personality. A reminder to flaggers to really question a driver after a hard impact couldn't hurt.

[LMcB]

A reminder to flaggers to really question a driver after a hard impact couldn't hurt.

Actually, if the flagger thinks the driver should see medical, they either call for medical or they request that the driver been seen at medical. We don't usually leave it up to the driver (sorry). Too often drivers are injured but they don't realize it until the adrenaline wears off, so even if a driver says they're OK at the scene, they still may need to be evaluated. The driver of any car that has a hard impact should be seen by medical. They shouldn't have to ask for it. As disturbing here is that the driver was left in the car in an impact zone after a hard impact. And then asked to drive his own car in? What were they thinking?

Leigh

[NutDriverRighty]

As someone who flags pretty regularly and has for 6 or 7 years, I am dismayed at the report of this accident. I NEVER let the driver decide much of anything after an impact. (If you saw Scott Sharp's wreck at the Petit last year at T11, I'm the fat guy trying to get him to come to the wall.) It is my SOP to ask name, date, location, what just happened, how it happened, etc. I also ask about numbness, tingling, pain, and get them to wiggle fingers, toes, etc. if it is a severe impact. I've always been taught that if the car is stalled, you go to the downstream side of the car so you can watch the driver AND on-coming traffic at the same time. As far as leaving the driver in the car, that's an incident-to-incident call. I don't think I would have in this case, but I wasn't there. Remember that sometimes the safest place for you to be is in the car, strapped-in, with all of your safety gear. In regard to going to medical, it is a given at Road Atlanta, CMP, Roebling, etc. in the SEDiv. Race control always tells us, but they don't have to because we know. If you refuse treatment, I expect that you're going to get a great deal of push-back from the stewards. I don't think having your license suspended and having to go through a physical again before racing is too much, but I'm not a steward. Lastly, if the car was leaking ANYTHING, it goes on a tiltbed around here. I just wonder what would've happened to the poor souls at China Beach should he have dumped a bunch of oil in T4 during his drive-in.
Unfortunate incident. We are all amateurs and I hope that F&C, Race Control, EV, the Stewards, etc. will all learn from this and make appropriate adjustments.

[R2 Racing]

As someone who actually has Mid Ohio as his home track and is quite familiar with the Lake Erie Communications folks, I too thought the whole thing was a little odd. I didn't see the car go in, but it looked stuffed in there pretty well, and was obviously in a pretty blatant impact zone. I too was rather surprised it wasn't moved. And if someone told me I had to drive the car back in after that, I would've slapped them upside the head.

Steph and Ed, it was nice meeting you. Sorry the ITA car got banged up, but I hope you enjoyed the weekend otherwise. Also, FWIW, I raced in a Figure-8 School Bus race last Saturday night with my Isaac's on. By Monday about everything else was sore, but my neck felt great!

[StephF]

As someone who actually has Mid Ohio as his home track and is quite familiar with the Lake Erie Communications folks, I too thought the whole thing was a little odd. I didn't see the car go in, but it looked stuffed in there pretty well, and was obviously in a pretty blatant impact zone. I too was rather surprised it wasn't moved. And if someone told me I had to drive the car back in after that, I would've slapped them upside the head.

Steph and Ed, it was nice meeting you. Sorry the ITA car got banged up, but I hope you enjoyed the weekend otherwise. Also, FWIW, I raced in a Figure-8 School Bus race last Saturday night with my Isaac's on. By Monday about everything else was sore, but my neck felt great!

Ha! Figure 8 school bus racing? You rock!
(I used to love Carpocalypse....sp?...my dirty little secret...:cool: )
It was nice to meet you too Kevin! Mid O was a blast and we do hope to come back again....