Oh, the horrors of racing! Amidst the grand celebration of the 38th Annual Chili Bowl, the racing community witnessed a harrowing crash that sent shockwaves among the audience. Christopher Townsend was mired in a crash with Kyle Larson during the heat race on Thursday. The driver after being escorted out of the car was hospitalized and diagnosed with thoracic compression spinal fractures of the T3, T4, and the T5 vertebrae. 

The incident occurred after 2x Chili Bowl champion Kyle Larson decided to contend in the coveted dirt racing series in the eleventh hour on behalf of Keith Kunz Motorsports. However, the race ended up as a complete tragedy for both drivers. Larson failed to pull off a ‘Dirt Double’ and qualify for the main event slated on Saturday. Meanwhile, Townsend was transported to the hospital. To add to the woes of Townsend, the driver’s helmet dislodged, which once again raised questions about the driver’s safety.

Chili Bowl driver clears the air on the dislodging of his helmet after surviving a harrowing crash

Just a year back, Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman fractured his vertebra while racing in High Limit Racing. As a result, he was sidelined from the Cup Series races for three weeks and eventually failed to qualify for the playoffs. While the memories from the crash are still fresh in the minds of the racing audience, Thursday saw the occurrence of a similar incident, involving Christopher Townsend. 

The incident occurred when both Larson and Townsend tried to come out of Turn 2 and Townsend tapped Larson’s car. As a result, both the cars faltered on the track. While Larson was able to escape unscathed, Townsend flipped in the air, and his helmet dislodged. The driver survived a fracture in his spinal cord, after being taken to the hospital for further evaluation. An official statement, released by the team, stated the driver’s condition. It read, “We got our results back. Christopher has fractured T3, T4, and T5 vertebrae as well as some bruisings above the lungs.

“We believe there will be no surgery, but he is being admitted overnight to watch his pain levels. Once he gets admitted, an orthopedic will come in and examine his back give us a little more detail on the fractures, and go about the recovery. We will update again once we have more information. Thank you all for the prayers!” However, the point of discussion among the racing community was the dislodging of the helmet. It was speculated that Townsend’s equipment was of not proper size or was not buckled properly which led to its dislodging. 

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Before the speculations could spread as wildfire, the team in another official release tried to clear the air, pertaining to the helmet. The statement read, “I wanted to make a post about the helmet situation. I’ve seen many questions and people being frustrated about this. I 100 percent strapped my helmet and attached (it) to (the) HANS device. There is a mark on my neck where the helmet was cutting me while coming off. I strapped my helmet to my liking like I have done since day one. It was tight to my standards but could it have been tighter, maybe to some.”

“I’ve seen a bunch of comments falsely accusing me of not wearing the strap, I also saw there was people saying I didn’t have a HANS. They are both incorrect. The Chili Bowl crew took my helmet and HANS and it was clicked together. We will now focus on recovery. Thank you for all the prayers.”

But what about the other man involved in the crash, Kyle Larson?

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While Townsend was admitted to the hospital, the other driver who was mired in the wreck Kyle Larson was able to continue his racing in the evening. However, the driver failed to qualify for the main event on Saturday. Apart from the crash with Townsend, Larson was caught in a second wreck that axed his dreams of clinching a third Golden Driller award.

After falling back in the pack, Larson eventually was able to climb back to the 11th position. However, ensuing traffic on the track eventually led the #98 KKN car to flip for the second time. This led to the HMS driver being escorted out of the track along with his car.

In the post-race interview, Larson exclaimed, “Yeah just a bummer on my part. Making a lot of mistakes, mostly from not being comfortable. I wish I could be here all week, till Sunday, and get to race the champions. Yeah, just be comfortable, against the curb here on a flat track stuff like that. Just kind of put myself in a hole and harder to recover.”

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With that being said, we hope that Christopher Townsend recovers from the fractures as early as possible and jump back to his usual self, piloting cars around the tracks.