Road racing is full of dangers. There’s the constant and extreme cycling of suspension parts, brakes, and consumables like tires, there’s the risk of having all the other cars on track and the varying levels of talent that come with that, and then there’s the danger of spinning off course and wailing a wall or another object that will decimate your car. Oh, there’s one other thing…reentering a hot race track during an event. Over my short road race announcing career (I had one with SCCA NER in college!) I saw more carnage from people coming back onto a hot track after leaving it than from anything else. None of it was even close to what you are about to see below in a wreck that involved racers Paul Fix and Tristan Herbert at Mid-Ohio last weekend.

Basically we pick it up with Paul Fix getting his car fired up and getting ready to pull back on the course after having left the racing surface somehow. He pulls out slowly and then Tristan Herbert shows up running at big speed and just center punches Fix and his car into next week. Amazingly both of these guys were OK because this is one of the more titanic shots we have seen anyone take on a road course. Fix’s car is completely decimated and we see it roll to a stop in the middle of the course. The whole front end is gone and there’s literally no left front suspension remaining on the car. This is brutal.

We’re not here to place blame on anyone. We’re guessing that these guys have limited range of motion with their neck because of padding and safety measures involving the construction of their cars. You have to feel for both guys here because Herbert was just an innocent driver in this situation. He was going along his merry way and then BOOM!