Touring Outlaw Modified Series driver Max Eddie Thomas rolled his car a few times, with a brief flash of fire, and then his ride came to a rest upside-down. Yet, he emerged from the wreck without serious injury last Friday at Heart O’ Texas Speedway in Elm Mott.
“I banged my knee during the wreck, but other than that, I’m okay,” Thomas, of Wills Point, Texas, said on Monday morning. “Luckily, the fire extinguished on its own and nothing got burned.”
Just past the midway point of the 25-lap feature, Thomas was moving through the pack on the outside.
“It was a three-wide situation and I got squeezed into the wall,” said Thomas. “The driver in the middle came up on me all at once. I climbed the wall and knew I was in for a ride.”
That ride ended on the frontstretch for the 2022 TOMS champion. Thomas sat in a Kirkey full-containment seat with a five-point harness from Pro 1 Racing & Safety Products. He wore a Zamp helmet, with the remainder of personal safety gear coming from K1 RaceGear via Smiley’s Racing Products.
On Monday, Thomas, his father, Max; and son, Dalton, looked over the modified from MB Customs. All three race modifieds, a tradition started by Max Eddie’s grandfather, the late Marvin Maurice Thomas, aka “Candy Man.”
“The good news is that the chassis seems to be straight — it held up well,” Thomas said. “Everything damaged [consisted of] bolt-ons — right-side A-frames, a couple of wheels, and a couple of shocks. We’ve already started putting the car back together.”
Fortunately, Max Eddie Thomas has some time to fix the car.
“We’re off this week, which will work out well to get back in shape for the TOMS race at Southern Oklahoma Speedway in Ardmore on May 4,” said Thomas. “After winning the championship two years ago, I finished second last year. I want to do better this year.”
The Outside Groove Director of Photography 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.
