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From the Havasu newspaper....
Jayne Johnson, Havasu, AZ – An 80-year-old racecar driver was airlifted by medical helicopter Saturday evening from the centerfield of Havasu 95 Speedway in SARA Park.
“We had a car climb a wheel with another car and turned over,” said Bill Rozhon, track promoter and race director at Havasu 95 Speedway. “It’s part of racing.”
Kenny Van Blargen, 80, Pasa Robles, Calif., was injured while driving his 50-some-year-old Vintage Sprint open-seat racecar during a heat race. The progress of the race went to a yellow caution flag just before the incident occurred and impact was at about 25 to 30 mph, Rozhon said.
“The car had very little damage to it,” Rozhon said.
The crash occurred early in the evening with roughly a thousand spectators in the stands.
“When something like this happens everybody is shocked,” Rozhon said. “When people get hurt, people are concerned … it was very gloomy here (Saturday) night.”
The speedway’s in-house rescue crew including two paramedics and four track-clean-up safety guys were first on scene and called 911. River medical ambulance service and the fire department responded immediately, Rozhon said.
“There were six guys getting him out of the car,” he said. “It took about 30 minutes to get him out of the car.”
Van Blargen was airlifted by medical helicopter from the speedway and flown to United Medical Center in Las Vegas.
“We Currently know that (Van Blargen) has a broken neck,” Rozhon said. “He has reflexes and he is coherent.”
Rozhon, 64, said he has been around racing all his life and, as far as wrecks go, has seen some real nasty ones.
“There’s no such thing as an average crash,” he said. “Things just happen. Some things are just out of our control.”
A few adjustments were made to races that continued in the wake of the incident.
Rozhon said there was a similar incident at the speedway about five years ago.
 Photo by Bobby Kimbrough
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