Charles Morgan and Tom Hessert won the Lights class for Essex Racing. In the GT race, Hans-Joachim Stuck, one of Balto's Le Mans seat mates, took the GTO class win and the overall win for Audi of America, while Amos Johnson won in GTU for Team Highball. Balto was somewhat happy for Hans taking the win, as his Le Mans ride would carry some momentum coming into the big race. But all he could think about that entire evening was Kyle's accident. Between his Le Mans crash and Bradley Steele's Sears Point crash from last year, this was the third major crash to affect Fox/Ridgemount Racing, although it was only the second major accident in which a Fox/Ridgemount car was involved, as Balto's crash happened in a Sauber Mercedes C9. After packing up and leaving the track, the team's next stop was the hospital to which Kyle had been taken after the accident. It was a long drive from the track to the hospital, as the nearest one with advanced equipment that could deal with Kyle's injuries was a fairly long drive from the track. With its rural surroundings, Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course is a long way away from any major cities. Being in such a location, the track usually draws only modest crowds because it tends to draw mainly purists, who think nothing of driving for long periods of time to see a race at "a real racetrack". Nor are they bothered by things like views that don't show the whole track, adverse weather conditions that would sent many people running for cover, or even the occasionally raucous crowd looking for something to stave off boredom. Road America, near Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, and Watkins Glen International, near the town of the same name in upstate New York, are two other examples of such tracks (torching cars in the bog was a popular pastime in the early years at the latter of the two). Eventually, the team transporter and motor home arrived at the hospital where Kyle had been taken to. Parking the transporter proved to be very difficult because there wasn't enough room in the hospital parking lot, and eventually the driver had to go park elsewhere. The motor home proved considerably easier to park. Once there, everyone went in through the main entrance. After Stan inquired at the front desk the whereabouts of Kyle's location (namely what room he was in), the team's next destination was indeed the room Kyle was in. When the reached the desk to ask where he was, Kyle was having x-rays done on his right leg, which sustained the most damage. The x-rays revealed a badly broken lower right leg and sprained right ankle, as Kyle had kept his foot on the brake pedal even at the point of impact. Turns out, a part of the wishbone in the right front suspension, which was mounted inside the cockpit, had pierced his leg. This was exactly what happened to Balto during his Le Mans crash last year. This isn't an uncommon phenomenon in low-slung race cars, where in a crash, drivers have had the wishbone of the suspension, or A-arm (or even control arm), piercing their legs. It's more common in single-seaters than in sports car prototypes, but not unheard of in the latter of the two. After five minutes of walking and elevator rides, Balto, Jenna, Stan and the rest of the team arrived at Kyle's room. Kyle's wife, Kelly, and their young twin sons, Alvin and Rodney, was already there. She rode with him in the helicopter from the track to the hospital and waited outside the x-ray room where Kyle had been x-rayed. Right now, Kyle looked absolutely exhausted. "Hey guys," said Kyle as he saw his team arrive. Stan and Balto were the first to arrive and in that order. "Hi, Kyle," Stan said back. "Man, you look beat," Balto added. "Tell me about it," Kyle responded. "I was screaming in pain just after the accident, and I think I'm a bit drained from it." "Was it that painful?" Jenna asked, sounding just as worried as everyone else. "Yep," Kyle replied. "Balto, you know how you had part of the control arm pierce your leg in your Le Mans crash last year?" "Yes, I remember," Balto replied. He clearly remembered it has though it had just happened, although he didn't remember anything that happened after that Nissan R88C smashed into him. "Well, that's exactly what happened to me," Kyle added. Jenna cringed upon hearing what Kyle had just said. Even merely hearing about such injuries was enough to make her remember when she found out about what happened to Balto last year at Le Mans. She was virtually in a panic when she heard the news, especially considering the slim chance he had for survival. She recalled immediately booking a flight to go visit Balto in the hospital, almost unable to stand seeing him in so much pain. And yet, she couldn't afford to wimp out in that situation. She had to be strong for Balto and was indeed overjoyed upon his release after three weeks including injury rehab, although Balto was suffering from amnesia and needed some reacquainting with the world around him. "How long are you gonna be out for?" Stan asked his driver. "The doctor says I'm out for about two months," Kyle replied. "I know I'll at least end up missing Road America." As bad as the news was, Balto was still optimistic that Kyle would make a quick and complete recovery. And looking on the bright side, as one must, he remembered hearing about David Purley in the Lec-Ford Formula 1 car, who during the 1977 British Grand Prix at Silverstone, had a most enormous, head-on, flat out impact coming to Becketts corner when the throttle stuck open and he rammed the vertical embankment at about 120 mph. The total length of the car was reduced to (this is no joke, by the way) about three feet. David suffered really awful leg injuries in the crash, yet he made a complete recovery. Bearing that in mind, Balto knew that there was hope for Kyle. All that could be done was hope for the best, but be ready for the worst. He still remembered what happened to Ronnie Peterson at the start of the 1978 F1 Italian Grand Prix. In what Innes Ireland described as "The most instantaneous fireball I'd ever seen," the Swede's Lotus 79 had its nose sheered off and launched some 50 yards down the track after the car got collected in a massive pileup as the field bunched up under braking for the first chicane. Initially, Ronnie was speaking with the medical personnel as he was being attended to after the accident. Unfortunately, he succumbed to a bone marrow embolism that had resulted from the leg injuries he sustained later that night. A similar fate befell Ricardo Paletti at the start of the 1982 F1 Canadian Grand Prix. Pole-sitter Didier Pironi stalled his Ferrari, and while the pack dodged it in all directions as they accelerated away from the standing start, Ricardo's Osella hit the Frenchman's stalled car squarely in the back. Having started at the back of the grid, Paletti had reached nearly 100 mph at the point of impact. The car caught fire soon afterward. The race was immediately red-flagged and brought to a halt as rescue workers moved in to tend to the grievously injured Italian driver. Paletti was soon airlifted to a nearby hospital, but succumbed to his injuries soon afterwards. The race was duly restarted in the gathering gloom toward evening, with Brazilian Nelson Piquet winning commandingly at the wheel of his Brabham-BMW turbo. As they left for the night, the whole team was in worry over uncertainty about what to do now and where to go from here.   The team spent the night at a nearby truck stop just off the interstate. In the morning, they headed back to the hospital. Kyle was awake and alert, as they had hoped. He was even able to head back to Monterey with the rest of the team. There he would begin physically therapy to help get his leg back to health. The injury that Kyle had sustained turned out to be a multiple compound fracture, although the bone wasn't actually sticking out through the skin, unlike what is usually the case with compound fractures. All in all, as serious as the accident was, it was a relief that Kyle didn't suffer any worse injuries. Now had he been doing the 240 mph+ speeds that were involved in Balto's Le Mans crash, this one would have been a lot worse. But one thing still weighed heavily on the team's mind: What to do about a possible replacement for Kyle until he was healed up? Balto now had both his seat mate's injury and his upcoming Le Mans assault on his mind. In addition to all that, he was beginning to suspect that Jenna was starting to turn the screws on him to get engaged. Not that he hadn't seriously considered proposing to her. But for him, the time just wasn't right, a she just had too much going on in his life right now. Plus, Jenna had been promoted to a higher position at her newspaper job and so far, she was having a little trouble getting the hang of it. The possibility of her forcing marriage on him at such a time just didn't make any sense to him at all. But that was the least of his worries. The replacement driver dilemma and the big Le Mans 24 hour race looming in just two weeks weighed heavily the most on his mind. The prototypes had three upcoming races at Watkins Glen International, Road America, and Portland International Raceway, near Portland, Oregon, that Kyle would definitely miss. The Watkins Glen and Road America races were both prototype-only, whereas the Portland race was would also see the GT cars compete as well. The doubleheader (prototype & GT) at Heartland Park, near Topeka, Kansas, was the first race that Kyle might be able to return for. But that would depend on his progress in recovery. All of those races would occur after the 24 Hours of Le Mans. After the team returned to their shop in Monterey, California, the first order of business was finding a fill-in driver until Kyle recovered from his injuries. The next order was the

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