Modified driver Kellen Chadwick finished 13th in his first race back at Central Arizona Raceway. An unremarkable finish for most, but nearly 17 years ago a crash at the Casa Grande dirt oval had nearly ended his life.
On February 22, 2008, Chadwick’s car got collected in a crash and started flipping on the back straightaway. As his car came back down, another modified hit Chadwick’s square in the roof at full speed. The impact had severed an artery to his brain and he suffered a brain bleed. Chadwick said he broke all seven bones in his neck, a couple in his back, with the total number of fractures totaling 32. Doctors told him family that they didn’t know how he survived.
“I was hospitalized and had to wear a halo for four months,” Chadwick, of Oakley, California, said. “The doctors said I couldn’t drive for 18 months to get the swelling completely down. But, being dumb and wanting to race, I didn’t wait quite that long.”
A little over a year later, Chadwick returned to his racing, with his first start back at his home track of Antioch Speedway. He then went about racing as usual, including a stint in Iowa while working for Rage Chassis.
“It wasn’t long after I got hurt that I wanted to go back to Casa Grande,” said Chadwick. “As a race car driver, I’ve accomplished a lot in my career. I am happy with my career. Returning to Central Arizona Raceway was something I wanted to accomplish for quite some time.”
The safety equipment from back then to today don’t compare.
Back then, he drove a Flexi Flyer chassis while sitting a lightweight Kirkey seat. Chadwick wore a helmet, of course, but only a neck collar.
Today, Chadwick races a chassis from VanderBuilt Race Cars. He sits in a ButlerBuilt full-containment seat with a Hooker Harness. Chadwick uses a Simpson helmet paired with a HANS device.
Even Central Arizona Raceway has changed.
“The track is quite a bit different,” Chadwick said. “The big thing is that there is a wall all the way around it.”
Nevertheless, Chadwick fought memories of that fateful night in 2008.
“It wasn’t the easiest thing to come back here,” Chadwick said. “I was thinking about what happened 17 years ago on the whole drive over here.
“On Wednesday, when I first went out, there were butterflies in my stomach. Once I pushed down on the pedals like I had done in so many races, everything went back to normal. Winning my first heat race on Wednesday felt like things were right.”
Kellen Chadwick announced that after the IMCATV Winter Nationals that he intends to take a break from racing. With five children, he and his wife have a busy life.
“I don’t want to miss baseball, cheer, and high school graduations,” said Chadwick. “I did one last thing for myself — came back here and raced.”
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.
