Not my accident, not a Y, but affected me deeply. I got a call last Saturday that a close friend of mine had crashed his car at the local strip. I immediately went there, he had already been taken to the hospital. Reports were that he was alert and talking when he left. He was there "alone", all of us cronies that usually congregate with him were not there for some reason or another. I took it upon myself to see that the car was loaded on his truck. His tilt bed did not reach the ground, so we had to winch it onto a rollback, back the two trucks together, and winch it onto his truck. I took his truck to my house. Monday I took it to his home, he seemed to want it home.
His car, the "Chicken Hawk" is/was a '51 Studebaker with a twin turbo 299" Studebaker engine. Runs about 10 flat and nearly 140 in the 1/4. They were running 1/8 mile that night at Muncie because of high winds. He runs 112 in the 1/8. He lost an engine, lost control because of the oil, crossed lanes (some say airborne and upside down), crashed through/over the left guard rail and backed into the scoreboard post, probably still running about 80. The car then climbed the post and the front of the car knocked the win light off the scoreboard, did a couple of pirouettes and landed right side up. There is no straight panel anywhere on the car. There are pictures all over, I know of the ones on the studebakerdriversclub.com forum, HAMB, and perfectrun.com. His name is Ted Harbit.
I have visited him several times, he has a punctured lung, broken collarbone, 2 broken lumbar bones in his back, and is beat up all over. I didn't make it to the hospital today, and this evening I got an email from him, he's home! Praise God!!
John - "The Hoosier Hurricane"
