Two brushes with fire taught Rick Reiter valuable lessons. His most recent experience occurred during one of the hobby stock B-mains for the IMCA Speedway Motors Super Nationals at Iowa’s Boone Speedway.
Reiter first hit the wall with the right rear of his car out of turn two, and then his right-front hit the wall. As he slid sideways down the backstretch, two cars T-boned his car.
“The first hit broke the rear end’s trailing arms,” said Reiter, of Des Moines, Iowa. “The second hit was so hard that the engine hoop broke off and pushed the fuel line into the manifold. It was pinched between the exhaust manifold and the cage.”
Fortunately, the track crew quickly responded. As they fought the fire, they called out to Reiter to get out of his car.
“I was dazed from the impact,” Reiter said. “It took a moment to realize I had to get out of the car.”
Besides being dazed, Reiter emerged from the crash without serious injury. He sat in a Kirkey full-containment seat, with a Simpson five-point harness. Reiter used Velocita for his fire suit, gloves, and shoes. He wore a Bell helmet, but without a head-and-neck restraint system.
The car, built by Southern Iowa Chassis, incurred quite of damage, according to Reiter. The rear end was ripped out, broke trailing arms, damaged the gear, bent the rear end, the driveshaft fell out, broke the front engine hoop bars off the frame, damaged the front suspension arms, and damaged a spindle.
Earlier this year at Boone Speedway, Reiter had another fire.
“The first fire was after I pulled into the pits and turned the engine off,” said Reiter, who has raced since 2006. “I didn’t know that I had a broken fuel fitting and the fuel kept pouring out.
“Luckily, the racers around me had fire extinguishers in their trailers and put the fire out. Now, I have two fire extinguishers in my trailer.”
After his most recent brush with fire, Rick Reiter is considering adding an onboard fire system to his hobby stock. He is also looking into purchasing a head-and-neck restraint system after experiencing soreness the day after the wreck.
“The moral to the story is fire safety,” Reiter said. “Fires have to be extinguished quickly to save your life, your equipment, and the equipment of the racers around you.”
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.
