The crash was fast, wild and scary.
In a matter of moments, Henry Van Dam went from speeding around Willamette Speedway in Lebanon, Ore., to being secured in a hospital bed. After tire-hopping a competitor entering turn one, Van Dam’s car wrecked up the small embankment, over the fence and off the dirt track during a race in 2007.
“How quickly things change from being on the track racing to be laying in a hospital bed not knowing what’s going on,” he said. “It’s a pretty tough thing to go through.”
As quickly as Van Dam landed in a hospital, the 27-year-old racer from Enumclaw, Wash., had a miraculous recovery – the only reason he’s able to wow spectators at race tracks across the Northwest.
After spending three days in the Intensive Care Unit, and another in a regular hospital room, Van Dam walked out of the hospital with a back brace and a halo around his neck. Approximately 10 weeks later, the support products were removed and he was given a clean bill of health.
“I pretty much escaped all complications,” Van Dam said. “Everything went just about as smoothly as they could have went. I was just extremely lucky.”
Van Dam said his C6 and C7 vertebra in his neck, and the T7 vertebra in his back, all exploded, with two more vertebra being fractured. It was an injury similar to fellow Northwest sprint car driver Danny Horner, who shattered his C5 vertebra in a wreck only a few months earlier.
Both drivers compared notes throughout the recovery process, but neither returned to the track that season. Unfortunately for Horner, a native of Cottage Grove, Ore., his doctors advised him to steer clear of the sport and he has raced a sprint car only once since his fateful crash.
Van Dam returned the following season.
“For as safe as our sport is with the side-by-side, open-wheel racing, there are risks every racer takes when he or she climbs into a race car,” Northwest Region Director Greg Burgess said. “We are very fortunate that Henry was able to recover so quickly and that he has returned to the Northwest Region as strong as ever.”
Van Dam’s apprehensiveness was erased a few laps into his first race back, which he finished third in the 2008 season opener at Grays Harbor Raceway – his home track in Elma, Wash. In his next race, Van Dam finished a season-best second in the American Sprint Car Series Northwest Region’s inaugural event, also at Grays Harbor Raceway.
“To be happy in my life I wanted to race again,” said Van Dam, who has six career sprint car wins. “You worry if you are still going to be as fast or be tentative or whatnot.
“Once I got a couple laps under my belt, it was no problem.”
Van Dam finished eighth in the Northwest Region points, making the feature in nine of the 13 events with six top 10s in 2008.
His progress continued this season with a fourth-place finish in the Northwest Region points. Van Dam advanced to the feature in 14 of the 17 races with 10 top-10 finishes, including a pair of runner-up performances.
But it was an unconventional award that Van Dam hung his success on this year. After passing 53 combined cars in the A mains this season, Van Dam was honored as the Northwest Region’s Hard Charger.
“That actually means a lot,” he said. “I really pride myself on being able to pass cars and being able to run places people normally aren’t.”
However, it wasn’t until the final lap of the last race when Van Dam earned the honor. After claiming the second-to-last transfer spot in the B main, Van Dam started 19th in the feature. He then passed 10 cars to defeat Steven Tiner of Visalia, Calif., for the award by just one passed car.
“I think for both of us passing over 50 cars in a season is a pretty good accomplishment,” Tiner said. “It wasn’t luck, where we started in the front two rows all year long. We started in the back and we drove it to the front.”
It was the type of performance and award that typified Van Dam’s season – and career. Nothing was ever easy. Van Dam simply made the most of every situation.
From driving a family car on a low budget to returning from what could have been a paralyzing wreck, Van Dam has typified a never-give-up attitude.
He has the 16th annual Trophy Cup – held Oct. 23-24 at the Thunderbowl Raceway in Tulare, Calif. – remaining this season and next year’s schedule will likely be much like this season, Van Dam said.
Van Dam hopes to compete for the Northwest Region point’s title and to rack up a few wins. But it doesn’t matter whether he takes the checkered flag ever again.
He’s already a winner for continuing to drive toward his dreams and overcome what could have been debilitating adversity.
