Cover your eyes!!!

I posted this on Nitromater. I hate to be the crash test dummie, but since I was I'll share this with everyone in hopes that it can be avoided in your pit area:

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Friday night I was thanking God for what didn't happen rather than what did.

We had an issue with a transmission and were running a little late with our warm-up. I started the car, looked at the timimg real quick then had Pete shift 1-2 then 2-3. Actually I was standing about 2 feet beck of the left front wheel when all of the sudden the right lens of my sunglasses took a hit and exploded. It hit so hard I fell back a couple feet. I remember seeing bright light before I put my hand up to my eye. When I pulled my hand back I saw from my other eye that there was blood running into my hand. I ran into the trailer to get water to throw on it and one of my guys threw me on the floor of the trailer and started pouring sports bottles full of water in my eye as they held me down and held my eye open.

After the first few bottles full of fresh-from-the-ice chest cold water I got up and the medical personel were already there. When I told them I've had the lasik proceedure on my eyes and that I've got a corial flap (which I thought must have been ripped off) they insisted that I go to emergency. At this point I was unable to see anything but a bright white blurr out of my right eye. When I first saw the blood I thought I lost my eye, but it was from a cut on my cheek bone from the rock or glass.

When I got to the hospital they were going to admit me because my blood pressure was 165/235. I told them it was that high because the tranny had issues, we were being called to the lanes, I just about lost an eye, we missed a session and now I'm here in the emergency room.

The on call opthalmologist (sp) came in and did a series of tests and confirmed that I had cornial abrasions including a large gash and what he called "an impact mark from some object" and that was causing swelling in my eye that was making it so I couldn't see. They continued to flush it out, applied all kinds of stuff to it and sent me to the pharmacy for a series of drops. The doctor said the risk now is infection.

When I finally got back to the track later that night the guys had accumulated a small pile of glass shards that used to be the right lens of my sunglasses. Thankfully none of them ended up embedded in my eye.

I want to thank all the people who came by our pit over the weekend to check up on me and the people here, too. It sure means a lot to know that friends are concerned and do care.

Bob Miner asked me who's job it is to wipe the tires off before the warm up. Like Dave said, now it's everyones.

 

Really glad to hear that you're OKAY Randy!!!

See you guys soon,
Nancy

 

Wow Randy, glad to hear you are okay after that deal. Very scary.
Being the clutch/tire guy on a car it was always my job to make sure the slicks were clear of any crud, especially some of the stuff we pick up here in D7. I wasnt so much worried about my saftey, it was for Kevin and Steve. Anything hit them and I woulda never heard the end of it hurt or not

 

Glad to see you are going to be OK.
Can you see this picture? What Class and who was the driver ? LOL

 

I always worry about being around the starting line when the burnouts are being done, sitting in the car being in line as the next target

 

Glad to here you are ok

Man I have thought about that many times were your glasses race fans and John you are right when your next up you are a target just sitting there. Take care of your peepers. Jim

 

Back when Jerry Darien was driving his TAD I watched as a blower restraint pin fell off the header bracket and landed just in front of the rear tire as he was prestaged with the R's up. I looked back and saw a half dozen people standing behind the car and thought "Who's gettin' hurt over this one?"

Thankfully no one did.

Take a look at all the bulls-eyes on the glass in the tower suites at Pomona behind the water box of each lane and that will tell you how safe standing behind a car can be.

 

Yikes, that's pretty scary Randy! Yeah, I'm always a little worried when we're next in line. When the cars in front of me pull up to do their burnouts my visor goes down, hopefully that would stop most things that would come flying my way...

My Dad actually had a similar experiance in the pits back in out TAD days. Driver revved up the motor in the warmup and it blew a spark plug out (took the threads right outta the head!) and hit him in the meaty part of his arm.

Glad you're a-okay Randy.

 

I can remember as a kid sitting in our truck as dad was getting ready to make a pass in our funny car. The guy infront of us was doing his burnout and threrw a rock up, shattering our windshield. The same year, we were warming the car up and blew a spark plug out, tube and all out of our Donovan, man that thing went 100 feet in the air!!! Nobody got hurt , but that was wild to watch that thing launch!

 

ouch

i am not going to name any names but i was helping a funny car team we were in the final in Columbus and hurring between rounds we made it. the car was doing the burn out and the crew cheif was walking behind the car to look at the track and see where he did the burn out and all the sudden he went to his knees the guy doing the clutch left the punch to adjust the stands where we always put it on the head where the manifold and head meets and forgot it and it came out under a tire and luckly hit the crew cheif sideways instead of like a bullitt but that was the worst i have ever seen he had a HELL of a black and blue bump on his shin so i learnt from that i wont walk behind one doing a burnout until the car is stopped figured if it is stopped what ever the tires picked up was on the ground or out of the track LOL

 

A few years back we kicked the rods out during a burnout. Somehow a chunk of the block got out of the diaper and under the wheel. It was about the size of a deck of cards. It flew back and took a pretty good sized piece out of the starters leg. I tried to get the piece to weld back in but the starter wanted to keep it.