As Jacob Ulrich tried to compress a 6″, 200-lb/in spring on Monday, it broke free and struck him in the face, rendering him unconscious. After, he found out the spring had broken his nose and the orbital bones around his left eye.
What Happened
“The spring was not on a shock yet,” Ulrich, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, said. “It was a double-stack spring for the right front that we had mistakenly put on backwards. We wanted to put it back on the right way. We were compressing it with a floor jack, pushing it into a shelf on our workbench.”
The process seemed so routine for Jacob Ulrich.
“We had done this 1,000 times, and if the spring breaks free, it typically bounces into the wall,” said Ulrich. “We had used zip ties to hold the spring, but we weren’t as lucky this time as all the other times we did this. Half the zip ties broke. My father-in-law, Daniel Hart, who is our car owner, yelled at me several times for smashing the spring this way. He told me to take it somewhere to get it done, but I didn’t listen to him.”
Ulrich’s brother-in-law, Ezra, and his wife, Shayle, picked him up off the floor and rushed him to Saint Francis Hospital in Tulsa. The medical staff treated and released him, with instructions for Ulrich to go to a vision specialist and a plastic surgeon this week.
“We are a low-budget late model team,” Ulrich said. “We don’t have top-dollar equipment … we want to do things ourselves whenever possible, rather than paying for someone to do it.”
Expert Advice
“Smashing a spring with a jack is completely unsafe, and should never be done,” said Frank Simonetti, of Swift Springs USA. “Springs carry a tremendous amount of force when compressed, which most people do not realize. Even when running a smasher, be super cautious. For example, compressing that 200-lb/in spring two inches creates 400 lb/in of force.”
Purpose-built spring smashers offer a greater degree of safety, according to Simonetti.
“Wehrs Machine, Boyd Bilt, Gale Force and Accu-Force spring smashers have devices in place to preload springs and push them down upon shocks,” Simonetti said. “The shock is captured, and the spring is captured with devices to make it much safer to smash springs. In the late model world, stacks of springs are common. Usually, racers are smashing two springs at a time that both have to be compressed to get on the shock. Now, we are seeing cases of triple stacked springs as technology is changing. Working with one of those four machines to preload springs and push them down on the shock is a much safer way to smash springs.”
Simonetti strongly recommends racers use a name-brand spring smasher, even if it means asking to use a friend’s or one from a local service.
“You can contact us or see our trackside support vehicle,” said Simonetti. “I’m more than happy to smash a racer’s springs and put combos together — free of charge — even if you are using a competitor’s spring. If we are not there, you can send us your shock and springs.”
Going Forward for Jacob Ulrich
“I’m not mad at anyone,” Ulrich said. “What happened is my own fault. I was definitely lucky. It is one of those deals where what happened could have killed me. Live and learn and move on.”
Jacob Ulrich intends to compete in the Comp Cams Super Dirt Series and Sooner Late Model Series.
“I’m going to a friend of mine to use his spring smasher,” said Ulrich. “I still can see, so I’m going to race Friday and Saturday this weekend, broken face or not.”
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.
