Flip happens, as Trevor Swenson found in his first night out in an IMCA mod lite. However, that didn’t deter the rookie driver as he raced the next night, thanks to help from his friends.
The wild wreck occurred during the feature at Marshalltown Speedway.
“It was my first race — I had only practiced at Sports Park Raceway a week earlier,” Swenson, of Jewell, Iowa, said. “That’s why I hung out in the back. In turns three and four, the rear end got out from behind me, caught on the track and over I went. I landed upside-down. As soon as I realized there was no fire, I just waited until they flipped my car back over. It was all good — I felt fine.”
No serious injuries, just a few bruises from his belts across his shoulders. Swenson sat in an Ultra Shield full-containment seat with a Simpson five-point harness. He wore a RaceQuip helmet with a neck brace.
Swenson loaded up his battered Bullet Chassis and headed back to the shop. He enlisted his friends Austin Gray and Luke Larson to help lift the car off the trailer, and then they went to work. Swenson’s father, James, ran for parts. His wife, Devin, kept everyone fed.
“When we got home from the track, we took the car all apart,” Swenson said. “We made an assessment of the parts we would need on Saturday morning. We had a lot of bodywork to do, and had to replace every part in the front end, including both shocks, spindles and brake rotors. [The team] worked from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, and we got to Boone Speedway in time.”
The race at Boone Speedway was uneventful, just what a rookie racer like Trevor Swenson needed.
“I took it easy and finished 20th, but I got seat time,” Swenson said. “I wanted to get laps under my belt, and I did. We had to go through a lot to get that second night of racing in, but we made it work.”
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.
