orphan drag race May 23rd, 2009...

Brown County Dragway web site is @:

http://www.ask.com/bar?q=brown+county+dragway%2C+IN&page=1&qsrc=0&ab=2&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.na-motorsports.com%2FTracks%2FIN%2FBrownCounty.html



Alex Burr

Memphis, TN

Here is more info on Ted from the Studebaker Forum. The initial an then an update:



Ted Harbit had a serious accident at speed in The Chicken Hawk at The Muncie [Indiana] Dragway Saturday evening, May 9, 2009. He remained conscious and was immediately transported to Ball Memorial Hospital in Muncie, where he is recovering from multiple injuries.



The famous Chicken Hawk, the 1951 Studebaker Commander Starlight coupe he has owned and raced since fall 1961, was destroyed.



Muncie was running only 1/8 mile drags that evening due to a heavy crosswind, a condition to which the track is susceptible due to the topography and its north-south orientation. The starting line is on the north end and the cars go south toward the finish line.



Earlier in the evening, Ted and The Chicken Hawk had posted dramatic, "best-times ever in the eighth" 60-foot times (1.47 seconds), ET (6.46 or 6.48; he doesn't remember for sure) and over 112 mph...in the eighth!



He was lined up in the right lane for a later race about 8:15 PM. That race went well and he (as usual) was beating his opponent as they approached the end of the eighth. All of a sudden, either the engine blew or a turbocharger oil line broke and sent an oil slick down under the car. The rear wheels lost traction and Ted lost control.



He shot across the left lane, narrowly missing his opponent because he was in front of him. Ted continued into the guard rail outside the left lane and hit it at such a speed and angle that it launched the car up and over the rail. The Chicken Hawk tumbled in some combination of a barrel roll and end-over-end, alternately airborne for periods of time, until the back of it, while airborne some 20' in the air by various accounts (and what Ted said) slammed into one of the posts holding the scoring sign at the end of the quarter mile!



That finally stopped the car from going any further. However, the impact of the pole on the rear of the car crumpled the deck lid and forced it open. That allowed the trunk-mounted battery to break loose...whereupon the battery alone continued another 300' down the track before coming to a rest!



Emergency responders arrived quickly and found Ted conscious and alert. They asked him his name and he said, "Ted." They asked him how old he was and he said, "Too Old!" (For the record, Ted was 74 years old last week.)



The Grace of God, his full roll cage, his good helmet, and his five-point seat belt harness all saved his life. His injuries include a broken right scapula, two broken lumbar bones, and a punctured left lung. He also has numerous scrapes and bruises. No individual injury is life-threatening...but taken together, he took quite a beating.



My wife and I spent an hour with him and wife Mary Ann and their daughter Missy Rich at Ball Memorial Hospital this afternoon (Sunday, May 10). He is alert and quite talkative, but on a morphine drip for pain and with a tube draining the left lung.



He is very sad about losing The Chicken Hawk, especially when it had been running so well that evening. Aside from that, his spirits are excellent. They are inventorying his injuries and deciding what needs to be treated in what order, but he is ambulatory...or as much as you can be when you're on serious pain meds!



They project his being in the hospital through at least Wednesday, May 13. [Note to the people to whom I sent a PM before the forum opened back up: I mistakenly said May 20 in that e-mail. It is May 13th, at least for now.]



Cards and well-wishes may be sent to his home and Mary Ann will see to it they get to him:



Ted Harbit

18994 North 125 East

Summitville IN 46070-9113



Hopefully, we won't get three or four threads going on this topic. I'll post more information in this thread as it becomes available. Meanwhile, please keep Ted and his family in your thoughts and prayers. BP



Bob:



Thanks for the report. There seems to be a little discrepancy about where he hit the post, and it is to be expected. Also, the number of rolls reported by various sources vary. Only a video of the whole thing would tell the truth, and if one is out there I'm sure it will surface.



The guy I talked to who was on the return strip directly in line with the scoreboard said the car backed into the pole at the bottom, then stood upright on the pole and the front of the car knocked the WIN light off the scoreboard.



I noticed the pole had a definite "kink" at ground level, then a gentle curve back toward vertical. Not purely vertical, but not bent over like a 20 foot high hit would bend it. I'm sure Ted thought he was 20 ft up while it was vertical.



I posted earlier that the pole stopped just short of the back window. I wondered why it stopped there; it was just sheet metal. Today I saw it. The rear end is what stopped the pole from penetrating further. The back cover of the 9 inch [Ford differential assembly] is severely dented, 'looks like it may be wrapped around the ring gear some. The bolts securing the ladder bar crossmember to the frame are sheared off on the left side.



I talked to Ted about 8:30 this evening, he sounded tired, so we didn't talk long. He was pleased that his car was secure. I also told him I had his cell phone, which really pleased him. Judy and I plan to take the car "home" tomorrow; he seemed to want it home.



You are right about his mental state [i.e., he's "all there"], he told me to take a little extra gas with me, the truck was low and he had intended to gas it up on the way home. [The truck's gas gauge doesn't work.] He said it should make it, but take a couple gallons along just in case. Think I'll just put some gas in it before we leave Muncie.



He asked me if I looked at the car, and did I have an idea what happened. I told him about the rod sticking out of the pan, and that he slid in the oil.



He was saddened to hear the engine broke. I told him I was sorry I made him feel worse, but I would not lie to him about it. Then he related how he had seen 8000 rpm on his tape [recording of a previous run] a couple weeks ago, and wondered if that was the start of the failure. 'Mind is still working!



If I can get Judy rolling early enough, I'll see if I can stop and see him tomorrow after we deliver the car. He still needs our prayers.



John



Scroll down this thread to see some pics, amazing he lived through the experience and came out not too bad for what it was:



http://forum.studebakerdriversclub.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=28940