The wreck Hunter Hollis endured last weekend proved to be more violent than it appeared. It occurred during qualifying on Friday for the SCDRA-sanctioned Winter Freeze at Screven Motor Speedway.
“I went into Turn 1 and did not let off on the gas,” Hollis, of Haughton, Louisiana, said. “I saw three main ruts in the turn. My right front dug into the bottom one, the tail of my car spun around, and the right rear caught another rut and that started the flip.”
Hollis said the impact snapped the hex bolt in the anchor connecting his Zamp helmet to his HANS device.
“[The helmet] was barely a year old,” said Hollis. “It surprised me after the crash when I saw what had happened.”
His other safety equipment included a Kirkey full-containment seat and five-point Hooker Harness.
“I stood up in the car, crawled out the passenger window and over the roof,” said Hollis. “My leg and head were hurting. Ten minutes later in the pits, my back and shoulder started hurting badly.”
Hollis checked in with the track’s safety crew.
“They said they didn’t think anything was broken, but [they said] if I started seeing dots, passing out, or throwing up, come right back to the ambulance,” Hollis said. “I went back to see how badly the car was damaged.”
His crew, consisting of his grandparents Joey and Brenda Moore and crew chief uncle Bobby Moore, repaired the Cavalier in time for Hollis to make the heat race.
“We replaced the control arm, tie rods, struts and the right-side brake calipers and discs,” said Hollis. “I was back on the track to start at the end of a heat race.”
Hollis pulled out of his heat race early when he experienced oil pressure problems. The next night, he finished sixth in the B-main. Only the top two transferred to the A.
When Hunter Hollis returned home, he still felt bad and went to the hospital.
“They X-rayed my leg, spine, and shoulder and found I had no broken bones,” Hollis said. “My leg hit a bar that holds up the dash, my shoulder was bruised from the belts. However, they did find that I had a concussion.
“I’ve been racing for 4 years, and I flipped or rolled over twice. Neither was quite as bad as this crash.”
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.
