Blake Naylor finally made his debut in a modified, competing in The Hangover at 411 Motor Speedway in Seymour, Tennessee. Nearly six months before, on July 31, 2020, he nearly lost his life. The dirt late model veteran wrecked his first modified while taking it down the road from his shop to shake it down.
Naylor had just acquired the modified the day before the accident after trading his late model for it. The following account comes from what friends and family told Naylor occurred. Naylor has no memory of the incident.
“Whenever I take a car on the road, it’s not made for the road, so I don’t drive like an idiot,” said Naylor, of Mount Orab, Ohio. “When I got into high gear, I got into the gas, to make sure everything moved [like it should], and when that happened, the steering wheel came off. I didn’t have time to react — I was already into a tree.”
The tree did a number on the car.
“It completely cracked the frame in half,” Naylor said. “It moved the right-side frame rail four and a half inches.”
The damage to Naylor was more concerning. He invested in some of the best safety equipment on the market, including a Bell helmet, Hooker Harness belts, and a Simpson Hybrid Sport head-and-neck restraint system. However, he did not use one piece of the aforementioned safety equipment at the time of the accident — not even his seat belts.
It resulted in one ambulance trip. Five days in the hospital. Twenty staples on top of Naylor’s head. Ten stitches over his eye. Two fractured and displaced vertebrae.
“One vertebrae is now 3mm away from my spinal cord,” said Naylor, of how to close he came to death.
Photo Credit: Courtesy Blake Naylor
Naylor spent the next 13 weeks in a neck brace recuperating. He could not drive. Fortunately, he could continue working while on the mend as a sales representative for medical devices as well as for Penske Racing Shocks and Draco Spring.
“Luckily, I had customers continue to buy product,” Naylor said. “A lot of [racers] bought parts because they knew I would be tight financially.”
The doctor cleared him to resume normal activities right after Thanksgiving. Naylor itched to get back into a race car.
“My wife, Mariah, was like, ‘Are you sure you want to do it this fast? Maybe you should wait for next year,’” said Naylor. “I was like, ‘I got do it.’ So, 411 [on January 2, 2021] was next year. I told my wife, ‘Hey, it’s next year. You didn’t say what time.’”
While on the mend, Blake Naylor looked for a new chassis. He connected with Jody Puckett of Stealth Race Cars about another race car. He picked up a new modified in October.
“The guys at Stealth were second to none, when it comes down to their overall willingness to care about somebody else and what they were going through,” Naylor said.
A couple weeks prior to venturing to 411, Naylor took his brand-new car out for a few laps at a track near him, at Jackson County Speedway in Ohio.
“It was different,” said Naylor. “I made four hard laps. I was very uncomfortable then. There was a little bit of PTSD. But, you got to get back in the saddle if you’re going to overcome something that took the wind out of your sails.”
Luckily, at 411, Naylor had a different experience.
“I didn’t feel uncomfortable, because I had passed a couple of cars,” Naylor said. “It was a good feeling [because, I thought to myself,] ‘OK, I’m not going to die in this race car.’ It was the first time in a race car that was in the back of my mind. It was good to overcome that.’”
Naylor performed well. He ran as high as second in his heat race before breaking a driveshaft on the final lap, relegating him to a fifth-place finish. Despite that he qualified for the main, but Naylor decided to end his day there. He accomplished his main goal — returning to the track.
“I was ecstatic,” said Naylor. “It was a good feeling.”
Ultimately, Blake Naylor learned a hard lesson from this experience. He said he’ll replace the steering coupling every year and now pulls on the steering wheel after putting it on to make sure it’s locked. However, things happen, and Naylor offers a piece of advice to fellow racers.
“Always wear your seat belt, your helmet, your head-and-neck restraint, no matter what, even if you’re just taking [the car] up the road,” Naylor said. “If I had those on, I feel like I wouldn’t have gotten hurt. I would have just wrecked a race car and fixed it or bought a new one. But, I wasn’t wearing those things, and it almost cost my life. I was 3mm away from death.”
The Outside Groove Executive Editor has covered motorsports since 2000. His many awards include the 2019 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Jim Hunter Writer of the Year and the 2013 Russ Catlin Award for Excellence in Motorsports Journalism.
