Entering the IMCA Speedway Motors Super Nationals, stock car driver Andrew Claus set the goal of making an A-feature qualifier. He achieved that on Wednesday at Iowa’s Boone Speedway. However, with four laps to go in that A feature, a crash dashed his hopes of advancing in the weeklong event.
“I was in turn three and going hard into turn four, a racer in front of me spun out and I tried to go underneath his car to miss him,” Claus, of Spencer, Iowa, said. “My car didn’t clear the other car, and my car made contact on the right rear. The trailing arm broke and over I went.”
Claus sat in a Kirkey full-containment seat, with an Impact five-point harness. He wore a Bell helmet paired with a HANS device.
“I rolled over one time and landed upside-down — it was not fun,” said Claus. “The first thing I did was hit the kill switch — I didn’t want to have a fire.”
After that, Claus moved to trying to exit his stock car.
“I stayed conscious and I was not hurt,” Claus said. “I released the harness without any trouble and lowered myself into position to crawl out of my upside-down car.”
The car from by K Chassis incurred relatively little damage.
(For more on K Chassis, read “K Chassis: Dustin Smith’s Winning Venture.”)
“It appears the engine and chassis are fine,” said Claus. “The body and all the bolt-ons in the rear end will have to be replaced.”
That wreck ended his IMCA Super Nationals week.
“Just frustrated, but I have to look at what my goal was,” Claus said. “This is the third year in a row I entered my stock car in the Super Nationals after making the Big Dance in my hobby stock. So far, it’s my best finish the stock car division.”
Andrew Claus only competes at Boone Speedway once a year. He has two more races to go this season, and he intends to repair his car to make them.
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.
