Austin Sprague flipped this Chevrolet Cavalier along the backstretch of The Dirt Track at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. He and his car owner Chris Corder then proceeded to part out the car to help his competitors. It’s a fitting end for a car that began its life as a gift to another racer.
Corder found the car while working at his business C & C Wholesale, a wrecker service and used car dealer in Modesto, California. He also races, winning five track championships in the sport compact class in his native state. When Corder came across a Chevrolet Cavalier, he gave it to fellow competitor Robert Jackson, of Sanger, California.
“[Robert] was a great competitor, but when his car was used up, he had no money to replace it,” Corder said. “I said here’s a car. Put a roll cage in and keep on racing.”
Jackson got to race the Cavalier only two times. On June 26, 2018, a car failed to stop at a four-way intersection and T-boned Jackson’s rat rod. Jackson, 49, died instantly. His racing peers remembered him as a shade-tree mechanic whom everyone loved.
“I got the car back from Robert’s family,” said Corder. “I put a tribute to him on the hood, and went out and drove the heck out of it, thinking of him all the way. I won just about every feature I drove it in for two years. The car was crazy fast with its 2.2L Ecotec engine.”
In 2021, Corder built a new car. When he heard about the misfortune Sprague endured, he offered him the yellow Cavalier.
“I was leading the feature in my Acura Integra with three laps to go at Merced Speedway [in California],” Sprague, of Oakdale, California, said. “My car started on fire. It burned so bad it wasn’t repairable.”
Corder brought his car and Sprague’s to the Las Vegas Dirt Nationals this past weekend. On the first night, Sprague flipped his car. The wreck began when a spinning car hit the left-rear wheel of Sprague’s ride.
“Everything went into slow motion,” said Sprague. “I tried to stay cool and calm, and I held onto the wheel. I lost sight of where the ground was. The car tumbled front, then rear, and so on, six times.”
Sprague emerged from the vehicle unhurt. He wore a RaceQuip helmet with a neck collar. He sat in a Kirkey seat, with Speedway Motors belts. The cage, built by Jackson, protected Sprague. As the crumpled car sat in its pit stall, it drew attention.
“A racer from Oregon approached us and told us how his car was damaged and he couldn’t continue to race,” Corder said. “He wanted to know if I would sell him the undercarriage parts from the Cavalier. I told him, ‘Help yourself.’ He seemed shocked.”
Throughout the years, Chris Corder offered numerous racers cars and parts.
“I want to keep racers racing in the sport compact division — I love the competition,” said Corder. “I see people doing what they really enjoy — racing. There are plenty of good people in racing who do not have a whole lot of money to buy a car. I’ve been fortunate to have sport compact cars and parts. My philosophy has been, ‘If you can use it, you can have it.’”
Outside Groove Note of Transparency: Corrected the name of the driver who flipped at Las Vegas (2022-01-28)
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.
