Things were looking great for CJ Horn as he led his heat race. Then, with the white flag in view, Horn’s car went over the lip of track, rolling over the bank. The incident occurred during the Malvern Bank Super Late Model Racing East Series event at Independence Motor Speedway in Iowa.
“CJ couldn’t get the car to turn when he entered the third turn,” CJ’s father and car owner, Chris Horn, said. “He didn’t know he had no brakes. We found out later a brake line had separated — the master cylinder was empty.”
During the rollovers, CJ’s head hit something, cracking his Bell Carbon helmet.
“We did not have roll bar padding [but] the helmet has no external marks,” said Chris. “Any scuffing on the helmet was not from roll bars. A lamination seam appears to have opened up. The left-front A-pillar was bent two inches, but that wasn’t in reach of the helmet. It’s yet to be determined what cracked the helmet.”
CJ sat in a ButlerBuilt seat, with a Creaform bead seat padding and Nomex covering. An Impact six-point harness kept him strapped in. CJ wore a Bell Carbon helmet paired with a HANS device. Despite the damage to the helmet, he was not injured, according to Chris.
“I’m a stickler for safety,” Chris said. “I bought the $1,100 helmet to protect CJ, and it did its job. Now it has to be replaced. As for the A-pillar, I feel it absorbed impact and is a testament to the safety of the Rocket chassis.”
The Horns have taken the late model back to its builder, Rocket Chassis, to assess the damage. Regardless of the future of the car, they remain thankful that CJ Horn will race again.
“CJ was angry that he crashed that car,” said Chris. “I told him there is nothing he could have done to save the car. When you go to the racetrack, you have to be realistic — you may not come home with your car in one piece. The important thing is that you come home uninjured.”
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.
Photographers
Scott Weber started photographing races while as a Lafayette County Speedway track official in 2012. In 2017 he went behind the camera full-time. You can find him in his signature black hat covering events in Iowa, such as at 300 Raceway and Independence Motor Speedway, and the Pro Late Model Series.
