From the cockpit of his race car, Rickey Shephard watched in horror as his stepfather, Ruben Broussard, went headfirst into the wall during the USRA factory stock feature at Monarch Motor Speedway in Wichita Falls, Texas.
“We were racing side-by-side a lap earlier,” Shephard, 33, said of him and his father. “As we entered the third turn full-throttle, Stephen Torrez got between us. The next thing I saw was [my father’s] car shot like a cannonball into the wall. I immediately spun my car around to check on my dad. I could care less about his car.”
Shephard and Broussard are inseparable, both at the track and away from it. They work together at Broussard’s auto repair business, Ruben’s Automotive, in Springtown, Texas.
Broussard, who has raced since 2007, had never experienced a wreck this severe. He became a regular in the factory stocks five years ago. Since then, he has won 41 features and scored four consecutive championships at Boyd Raceway in Texas and one at 281 Speedway in Stephenville, Texas.
“Torrez’s car pushed up — he didn’t know I was still there in the outside groove,” Broussard, 47, said. “My left-front fender and his right-rear quarter panel collided. It shot my car into track exit ramp. [The car] T-boned a pole with tractor tires around it. It was a bad lick.”
The crash totaled Broussard’s car built by Outlaw Racecars in Texarkana, Texas, but Broussard emerged from the wreck without injury. The car’s performance in the wreck impressed Broussard so much that he ordered two new cars from Outlaw Racecars.
Broussard sat in a Kirkey full-containment seat, Simpson five-point harness, and a neck collar with a Simpson helmet.
Shephard let his father take the wheel of his car the following night.
“It’s so much fun to watch my dad race,” said Shephard. “I don’t want that joy to be taken away from him.”
Monarch Motor Speedway races their fourth event of the Monarch Sunoco Summer Series this Friday. Ruben Broussard enters it with two wins and this DNF.
“We’re going to pull the engine out of my car, put it in his, and go back to Monarch Motor Speedway to win the [series],” Broussard said. “We need the money. We have two new cars coming.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
