Tommy Kendall was in a lead when accident occurred near the midpoint of the Continental VIII, a 150-minute timed International Motor Sports Assn. Camel GTP race. Kendall was leading when he pitted on Lap 53, relinquishing the point to Geoff Brabham. Eight laps later, Kendall came out of the backstretch at about 140 m.p.h. as he entered Turn 5. At that point, a forged wheel hub on the left rear snapped, the wheel flew off and the car did a 360-degree spin. When the exposed axle dug into sod, it literally hurled the car across a stretch of grass as if it had been flung from a slingshot, straight into a tire barrier. At impact, the car broke apart as it is designed to do - and diffused the force so that Kendall's upper body was not damaged by whiplash.

"Our engineers estimate the centrifugal force from the whipping action may have speeded the car to as much as 180 (m.p.h.)," said Jack Bodnar of the MIT racing team, which owns the car.

"Tommy never lost consciousness and was lucid all the time," Bodnar said. "He even took off his helmet himself, waved to the crowd and his first words to the IMSA Porsche safety crew were, 'Tell my mom I'm all right.' He didn't have a scratch on him above his legs."

Driving a prototype Chevrolet Intrepid sports car, Kendall smashed head-on into a barrier at Watkins Glen, the impact breaking his right leg in two places, his left ankle and pulverizing his right ankle. One reason the leg injuries were so severe is that Kendall is 6 feet 4, and there is no place to bend inside the tight cockpit.

He was in surgery for more than nine hours, mostly while Dr. Terry Trammell pieced together his right ankle with wire, bolts, rods and screws in the injured race drivers' house of magic - Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis.