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