Larson/Cox Crash out of 2000 Ojibwe Forests ProRally
We entered the 2000 Ojibwe Forests ProRally in Bemidji, MN leading the Production GT class of the SCCA's Central Division. In fact, we had a string of 6 straight PGT wins under our belts. The 10,000 Lakes and Paul Bunyan's Ride ClubRallies were run concurrently with Ojibwe, and we needed a split in order for me to stay ahead of Chris Czyzio, who has won PGT in the Central Division for several years in a row. Our goal was to finish 10,000 Lakes on Friday close enough to Chris to be equally seeded for Paul Bunyan on Saturday. On the first stage, we beat Chris and his co-driver Eric Carlson by a half a minute, putting ourselves in good shape from the start. In fact, our time was 22nd fastest out of the 77 combined cars on the two events, which I was thrilled with as a seed 4 driver in a production car. On the second stage, we were running equally fast and were feeling great when disaster struck. I had forgot to put on my shoulder belts at the start. My co-driver, Kelly Cox, had pulled them over my shoulders so I could buckle them while I drove. Cresting a hill in third gear, I saw the treeline open up ahead and totally misjudged the blind corner over the crest. We got the rear wheels off on the left and I kept on the gas trying to pull it out, but we must have hit something with the left rear wheel which spun us over the bank, hitting a tree about 6 feet off the ground. That tree flipped us over into two more trees about 6" in diameter, which both broke in half, absorbing a lot of our energy and landing us on the roof. I didn't have much headroom in the Talon, so my head was pinned against the flattened roof. All I could think about was the fact that we were down a bank and might not be spotted by anyone else. I undid the strap and tried to get my head out of the helmet, but that didn't work, either. Finally, I grabbed the strap with my right hand and pulled it to the right, which at least got me onto my back on the roof. Kelly had kicked out her window and crawled out, so I just slid on my back across the roof and crawled out her window. Kelly was just scrambling out of the ditch and I was climbing out of the car as Paul and Yvon Dubinsky came along in the next car, also a PGT Talon. We just had time to wave that we were OK when we heard another crash and the sound of breaking glass. Turns out that one of our broken trees had fallen across the road! They continued on, apparently OK, but we felt bad because they had left their broken driving lights on the road beyond the tree. We found out later that they had submarined under the tree trunk, also cracking their windshield in the process. We were able to warn all the other cars to slow down and drive through the ditch around the tree, which was too big to move. Several drivers didn't heed our warnings, and drove through the higher branches, breaking them off little by little until there was a clear path around the tree. The fourth car from the end ignored us entirely and ended hitting the tree head on, knocking it back off the road! We were both unhurt, except that Kelly burned her hand on the tailpipe while climbing around the wrecked car. The car is totalled. We may be able to find a shell and add our own components from the old car, but for now we are out of business. It's really too bad that I ruined my best shot at the divisional championship. For now, I'm going to have to take some time off and maybe compete as a co-driver for a while. |
