Quote:
Originally posted by Liz
But a little bit of better news - a Panoz hit the wall hard in testing, and the guy was wearing the HANS device and was only shaken up by the accident, when it would have been much worse if he had not been wearing it. So although motor racing is still dangerous, it is not so dangerous as it was.....
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The car that hit the wall on Friday was Leighton Reese's 2001 "Banner Engineering" Corvette, being driven by Kenny Wilden. Leighton formerly drove the "Minnetonka Missle" Pontiac and was a winner last year at Texas. Kenny borrowed Leighton's HANS device, not having his own. The accident was severe enough to break the HANS device. Kenny was complaining of lower back pain, but the borrowed HANS device may have saved his life. You may remember Kenny as the driver who gave Jim Deerhag's team its first TA win last year in California.
If you saw the race, you will note that the Banner Engineering logo was carried by Johnny Archer's Viper. Leighton and the Archers are old ice racing buddies, and as Banner Engineering had a large group at Mosport to watch the race, the Viper carried Leighton's sponsor colors during the race.
My husband and I were at home watching the race on television. We saw the Ambulance Now signals from the workers, and when the Jaws of Life signal was given, we started praying that what we thought happened didn't.
Our prayers to the LG Motorsports team, particularly Lou Gigliotti (Gag's teammate and friend) and Mike's wife and children, and to Greg Longo and his wife, and Greg's teammate, Kerry Alexander. Lou had just come from his most recent Trans Am win at Long Beach less than a month ago.
Chris Safranek