For the first time in his career, Shawn English (60) went airborne. His car and that of Cameron Murray (pictured left) wound up landing upside-down. The incident occurred during the Wednesday Semi-Pro Legend Cars feature of the INEX Winter Nationals at Citrus County Speedway in Inverness, Florida.
“I was in 10th place when two racers in front of me got aggressive with each other,” English, 16, of Brandon, Florida, said. “One got ramped into the wall, causing my car to hit his.”
Despite this being only his second year in Legend Cars, he already has significant hardware on his mantel. English won the Florida State championships in Young Lions and Overall. He has a track championship at Citrus County Speedway and won the rookie of the year.
“I always heard you should try to save it until you can’t,” said English. “All I could remember was going toward the glare of the sun and then seeing nothing but sky. Then, I knew I couldn’t save it.”
When he landed upside-down, English wanted to move into action.
“My immediate reaction was to unbuckle,” English said. “The safety crew told me to stay strapped in until they could lift the car and flip it over. I didn’t even think of fire until I saw fluid running from my car on the track.”
English and his former racer father, Rick, purchased their car directly from US Legend Cars. The car came with a full-containment seat and five-point Simpson harness held English in. He wore a Bell GTX3 helmet, HANS, Velocita fire suit, Simpson shoes, and K1 RaceGear gloves.
“My only injury was that the belts roughed up my neck,” said English. “It was the first time I’d been on my side or flipped my car, and I started racing in karts when I was five.”
English never got a chance to talk with Murray about the wreck. Murray did not respond to our requests for a call.
“His car was off the track first, and I didn’t see him the rest of the week,” English said. “We made emergency repairs went on to race the final two nights.”
Shawn English went on to finish 10th and third the next two days of the INEX Winter Nationals. He finished ninth overall for the Semi-Pro division.
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.
