Drivers Comment 28/11/06
It was to be the final race of the season and an end to a great first year of racing (with taking out the overall class win for the season and finishing in the top 10 ), though it didn't happen like I thought.

Our team headed to Wakefield Park early to get some miles up in the car as I had never race there before we spent all day Thursday on the track and had the car in fine form. We qualified 5th and in the first race and finished 5th, we were up against 3 radicals and the west (these cars are state of the art and do times equivalent to F4000 cars and quicker)
 
Race 2 saw the first of the reverse grid races and we finished 7th.

On Sunday was race 3, a race that would end up changing the way I view my friends and racing in general. Over the past 6 months I have found the people in the AMRS series to be a great group of people and I have formed very strong friendships with allot of guys in my Thunder Sports class. One guy in particular Quinny, who by this stage in the season had won the round, his class and also won the over all points for the year.

In race 3 we had the reverse grid format again after about 5 laps into the race I had made up about 7 places, I was coming around the top part of the track and made a move under Jeff Leeds to find Quinny had started to loose control and go into a spin towards the right side of the track, the old rule is go towards the track where the car started to spin, though as fast as he went to the right his car as though it was on a rubber band shot back across the track in reverse in front of me and I t-boned him in the right hand side of his car about 130 to 150 k's.

After we came to a holt I got my breath back as I was winded and somewhat dazed from the impact I got out of the car to find Quinny still in his car unconscious. 

To cut a long story short as I don't want to relive the incident again, he is in Sydney hospital with a broken neck, bruising to the brain and concussion. The doctors have operated on him to fuse the discs in his spine together.

I have not spoken to him as he is still in intensive care and can only communicate via written message, though his wife and close friends Rocket (who races in our class) and Mike (Quinny’s Team Manager) have told me he is making a great recovery and will be fine now he has had the operation. My wife and I will be travelling down to Sydney to see him over the next week or two  (as he will be in hospital for about a month)

On behalf of myself and everyone associated with the xcarz racing team, we wish Quinny a full and speedy recovery and offer congratulations on wrapping up the Futureracers and Thundersports titles for 2006. We are sure he will be back charging hard in 2007.

If anyone has any kind words you would like to send him, just drop me an email and I will take them down.