Illinois’ Highland Speedway renamed turn one the “Hot Sauce Corner” after Thomas “Hot Sauce” Hunziker wrecked there. The hot action occurred last Saturday during the DIRTcar Summer Nationals late model feature.
“[Highland Speedway] is tricky,” Hunziker, 55, of Bend, Oregon, said. “We were running side-by-side for four laps — the whole field — after a restart. The track is tight, and I was feeling super comfortable riding along when my right front touched the wall below the flagstand on the frontstretch. I went over and hit a power pole in turn one — that’s never good.”
(For more on the driver, read “Thomas Hunziker: Embraces Learning by Doing”.)
Fortunately, Hunziker emerged from the wreck without injury. He sat in a Kirkey full-containment seat paired with Hooker Harness belts. Hunziker wore a Simpson helmet and a HANS device.
Hunziker put the Rocket Chassis XR1 back on the trailer and brought out a spare for the rest of the tour.
“The parts being torn off slowed the velocity of the wreck and absorbed the impact,” said Hunziker. “The lower- and upper-arm suspension was ripped off both sides of the front. The engine was moved, and the motor mounts were ripped. That squished the inboard headers. The engine appears to be okay. At the end of the tour, I will take the chassis back to Rocket.”
Oddly enough, Hunziker injured his hand the next night at Tri-State Speedway in Haubstadt, Indiana. The steering wheel caught his hand as he tried to avoid a spinning car.
“It is strange not to get hurt in the big wreck, and then get a swollen hand from something minor the next race,” Hunziker said. “I learned a couple of years ago not to hang onto the steering wheel when you crash — it will shred you. The best way to crash is to just relax and go for the ride.”
The ride at Highland Speedway earned him his own corner, a honor typically reserved for those in racing’s pantheon, such as Andretti, Petty, and Unser.
“When we were cleaning up the track, Kurt [Vonder Haar, Highland Speedway marketing director] brought a bottle of Tabasco with him, and we took a photo of Thomas’ pile of parts and took a photo of the parts with the sauce to honor him,” said Shaun Horstmann, director of competition for Highland Speedway.
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.
