October 7, 2006

R5/cr > R4/dip

Gets you every time. I kid you not, I thought I was the only one, but everyone got sucked in and I just happened to hit the rock. I knew we were gone when I shifted into fourth gear and drove over the crest. This was no right five corner. This was a right four, that went over a crest and got tighter, more like a right three. I couldn’t slow down and I definitely couldn’t hit the brakes, because then I’d loose control. I felt my rear tires sliding into the ditch and I thought I could drive through it and jump back onto the road, that everything could turn out okay. I thought wrong. There was something in the ditch that caught my left rear tire and we were goners. It didn’t feel like anything except that I had been driving and now we were flying and then hit the ground and slid for some distance and there was lots of dirt in the car and then we stopped.

There was blood everywhere and my co-driver Alan Perry immediately released his belts. I didn’t know then and I still don’t know why I was so perfectly calm. He couldn’t get out. Okay. I stopped to release my Cool Suit connectors and intercom. That’s when I saw blood everywhere. Oh my god, I had injured my co-driver. We had to get out. I released my belts, slipped out of my seat and kicked my door open. I crawled out and Alan was asking if I needed the Red Cross? What? And then I started coughing up dirt... and blood. Oh my god, I was bleeding. I was hurt. But what? Where? My face, my nose. We didn’t have time to think about it, I jumped back into the car and got what was left of our triangles so we could warn the other cars.

Leon was the next car after us. He slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the car. You’re bleeding, are you okay? What happened? Everything else that happened next was a blur. All the other cars saw the triangles and passed safely. I had to get the dirt out of my mouth. It took a long time to stop bleeding. The course closing cars came and the EMT checked me out. Alan only had a few scratches, but it looked like I had a broken nose. Something must have hit me in the face, but I didn’t remember. I just wanted another chance, more brakes, better tires, more horsepower, better suspension... These things happen. I knew I would keep rallying. I still wanted to drive. If I had landed on my feet, I would have kept driving. It happened. Okay. There’s no rewind. Life happens.

And that’s about all I feel like talking about right now.

October 12, 2006

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