Stock car driver Joey Crowder rolled his stock car to pieces entering the third turn of Salina Speedway in Kansas. It occurred on the first lap of his heat race on Friday.
“I honestly don’t know where it all went wrong,” Crowder, of Salina, Kansas, said. “The car was running well, and I drew the pole. I got sideways in turn two, regained the car’s composure and got on the throttle. I was running in second going into three and suddenly the car hiked up on the left front. The left rear followed. The right-front must have dug in. That was it.”
Things begin to get foggy for Crowder after that moment in time.
“I remember the first two rolls, but I got knocked out between the second and third roll,” said Crowder. “I was told by the track crew I was out for two minutes.”
Safety personnel helped Crowder into the ambulance, which then took him to the hospital.
“When I came to, I was not feeling any pain — I was more worried about my car,” said Crowder.
After the hospital released Crowder at 1:30 a.m. the next morning, he went back to the track to assess what happened.
“My head hit a bar on the right side of the seat,” said Crowder. “After the second roll, an impact made my seat flex, and my helmet hit the bar so hard that it cracked.
“I always cinch my belts tightly. The weight of my body during the rolls kicked the right side of the seat out and twisted the headrest. Everything bent to the right.”
Despite being knocked out, Crowder said he was okay. He wore Zamp helmet paired with a Speedway Motors neck brace. He sat in an old-school Kirkey seat with a headrest and Speedway Motors belt. Crowder added that he had padded the bar his head hit with standard roll bar padding from Speedway Motors.
Initially, Joey Crowder said he felt his car from Medieval Chassis was repairable. However, he discovered bent and stretched cross bars that were too difficult to repair. Crowder hopes to find a new chassis to race with soon.
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
Carl “Red” Larson started shooting photography in 2001 at WaKeeney Speedway in Kansas. Last year, he covered 67 events at 11 different tracks. You can find him at one of many tracks located in his native Sunflower State.
