As competitors fought to qualify in their heat race, Kenny Bock wound up landing his car upside-down against the wall. The incident occurred during the Freedom 38 at Grandview Speedway in Bechtelsville, Pennsylvania.
“The track was wet, and the drivers were rowdy because it was a big event, with more than 50 cars trying to make the feature,” Bock, 28, of Oley, Pennsylvania, said. “Visiting drivers unaccustomed to the track were going into the turn hard, and their tires were digging in. There were two caution flags prior to the red flag that came out for my crash — and not a lap was completed.”
Bock caught the right-rear wheel of another car with his left-front wheel. That launched him in the air, where he proceeded to roll before coming to a rest next to the wall.
“The worst thing was landing upside-down up against the wall,” said Bock. “I had practiced an emergency escape from the left side of my car, but I did not think that the left side would ever be blocked.”
The safety crew pulled Bock out of his car. He reported soreness in his arms and legs the day after the crash.
Bock sat in a Kirkey full-containment seat, with a Simpson five-point harness. He wore a Bell helmet paired with a HANS device. He steered a 2014 chassis from Bicknell Racing Products.
“The car had a bent front end,” Bock said. “Because it was upside-down, we lost a lot of oil from the breather. We tried to fix it and get back out there, but we just ran out of time.”
Kenny Bock said he had plenty to be proud of this season. He placed ninth in the competitive sportsman division’s point standings at Grandview Speedway. Bock also ventured away from home. He picked up a top 10 in one of the events for the Short Track Super Series crate 602 sportsman class.
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.
