Larry Crum’s Grand Bend Notebook

Saturday Notebook

COMMISSO’S WILD RIDE

(Roger Richards photo)

Friday’s racing action at the 10th annual MOPAR Canadian Nationals saw a little bit of everything from new track records to two cars putting it on their tops.

One of those accidents, which saw Ray Commisso get hard into the wall and flip onto its roof, left one of the top contenders of the weekend on the sideline and his car in pieces.

Just moments after Ed Hoover put down a new track record in the same lane, Commisso made his pass with solid numbers all the way to half track. Once there the tires began to shake on Commisso’ Camaro and before he knew it he was in for the ride of his life.

“Something terribly drastic went wrong. I stuck the car in second gear and felt a little tire shake, nothing unusual. I have had that tire shaking running 5.90s before so it is not a big deal, but as the tire shake started something really bad happened,” Commisso recalled. “The car went hard left all by itself into the wall. What I remember I hit that first wall and barrel rolled and was upside down for a while and flipped over again and went head-on into the other wall and hit the other wall dead-on and the car burst into flames. I jumped out and that was all of it.”

After getting out of the car Commisso was transported to a local hospital and was released and returned to the track in the early morning hours.

“I am sore. I went to the hospital and they were great here in London. The trauma unit, the doctors and nurses were all great,” Commisso said. “They took me right away and gave me a CT scan. I had a few bruised ribs and a torn muscle in my shoulder, but otherwise the car took the worst of it.

“The car did its job, it kept me safe.”

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