It’s been a long road for Chad LeGere to return to racing this season. He survived being nearly buried alive more than a year ago.
On April 5, 2023, LeGere grew impatient waiting for safety shoring to arrive as his company, VIP Contractors, dug a 20-foot-long, 13-foot-deep, 4-foot-wide trench to recover a sewer line.
“I was trying to be a smart ass — I jumped into the ditch to find my sewer,” LeGere, of Ankeny, Iowa, said. “I was in the ditch when a wall of dirt collapsed, burying me up to my neck. The weight and force of the dirt pinned against the opposite wall of the ditch.”
LeGere tried to breathe, but he could not inhale — the weight of the dirt smothered him. LeGere passed out as his employees dug frantically to rescue him.
“I working to free myself as the employees helped me,” said LeGere. “I recall climbing up a ladder out of the ditch, but after that nothing.”
After he arrived at the hospital, he spent 20 days in the ICU. The medical staff placed him on a ventilator, with five chest tubes installed. LeGere’s injuries included two broken collarbones, three fractured vertebrae, 16 rib fractures, a punctured left lung, and a collapsed right lung.
“I was released a month after the accident,” LeGere said. “It took me a while to learn to walk again without a walker. I lost 80 pounds while I was in the hospital. To make matters worse, I got a staph infection two weeks after leaving the hospital, and they wanted to readmit me.”
Nick Roberts took over driving LeGere’s stock car after the accident. While LeGere stayed home, he helped Roberts in the shop as much as he could.
“There is no doubt that racing helped me recover,” said LeGere. “Working on the stock car for Nick got me flexible again. I learned to know my limits, and to stop working when it was time to stop.”
Eventually, LeGere regained enough strength to go to the races in-person. Roberts won two big stock car events in 2023 — the Tiny Lund Memorial at Shelby County Speedway in Harlan, Iowa, and the Clint Walrod Memorial at Stuart International Speedway.
“I ran to victory lane and was completely out of breath,” LeGere said. “It was the first time I tried running.”
At the close of last season, LeGere wanted to get back into the cockpit of a race car. He decided to drop down a division to the hobby stock class. While it’s been a challenge, LeGere is managing to break the top 10, finishing 10th last Sunday at Stuart International Speedway in Iowa.
“I learned to know my limits,” said LeGere. “Getting in and out of the car is sometimes still tough for me.”
Chad LeGere aims to return to the seat of a stock car by later this year, once he feels he has regained enough strength to do so.
“I’m not the best racer, but I learned to be respectful and thankful,” LeGere said. “The racing family is incredible. I love that family more than I love racing, and I am glad to be back.”
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.
