It was only last week when I decided to get in touch with Ian about buying the car from him, seems like a long time ago now, I knew he was racing at SANTAPOD RACEWAY last weekend at the National Finals so I arranged to go and see him, I wanted my brother to come with me but he was working on the Saturday so we went on the Sunday instead, which was good for two reasons, the first being it was a glorious day the sun came out it was warm if not hot at times, the other reason why Sunday was a good day was it meant we missed a nasty crash. In all the years I have been going to watch drag racing the one thing I hate to see is a crash, it means someone's hard earned money and sometimes years of work are destroyed in seconds and of course even worse, the drivers can get hurt and injured. Thankfully these accidents are not a common event, I have found a YouTube video of the crash if you are of a squeamish nature don't watch.
The driver in question is Graham Ellis who has been a race car driver for many years even his son and daughter race drag cars, Graham's car was a reproduction Plymouth Superbird running with a 3000 plus brake Horsepower twin turbo engine in the Pro Mod Class capable of running low 6 seconds passes at well over 220 mph, and to make matters even worse the car had already been sold to help finance Graham's new car.
This happened the day before I went to see Ian about buying his car.....it was close I very nearly pulled out after seeing this, even though the difference between the two cars in terms of performance is immense, how-ever drag racing is relatively safe motor sport and the safety equipment did it's job and even though Graham didn't escape serious injury he is alive but still in hospital at the moment, the latest report published in the font of all European Drag Racing Knowledge that is EURODRAGSTER.COM states that ......
"Graham Ellis update.
25th September: Many thanks to team member Rob Millward who got in touch with an update on the condition of UK Pro Modified racer Graham Ellis, who suffered a serious crash at the UK National Finals at Santa Pod Raceway last Saturday:
Graham is pretty beaten up as you would expect. He has two black eyes, a broken nose, broken neck although not serious, broken lower back, broken left arm (in a cast) and a broken collar bone on which they are going to operate as it has to support the aditional weight of the cast, and bruised lungs so has an oxygen feed as the lungs can't function fully. He is well-medicated so fairly comfortable all things considered. He should be in a back support by now and hopes that he will be discharged soon, but personally I think it may be another week or so.
I showed Graham footage of the crash and he was surprised how bad it looked. No decision on cause of crash, it all happened so quickly. Graham said "When I realised I couldn't catch it, I thought "This is going to hurt", I remember hitting the wall then the next thing I knew the safety crew were assessing me".
Graham is pretty upbeat about it and already planning his comeback. "
Anyway on with the show I now have a few options about where to park the truck and car thanks again to the Tireless Ian Turburville and I now have a direction to go forward with in terms of learning to drive the car and where to do it, more on that later, now I have more important things to do...walkie s dogs......!!!
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