Check out a live interview with John!

John discusses his injury and the future of Protofab racing along with other moments from his career.
http://racemn.com/2009/06/29/john-nelson-umss-sprints-62909/

ManEater - Kopellah - 6/12 from my perspective

Anticipation was high as we rolled into the weekend. The weekend officially got started at about noon on Friday. This was after what seemed like a full day’s work packed into four hours to get an early start with a half day vacation. Also, with the beautiful weather, concentration was at a minimum as my brain just didn’t like the old 8x8 cubicle and found itself wandering outside many times. Nonetheless, I was en route to Cole’s house to jump in with the team, and we were actually on time at this point.

We pulled into the race shop and did a quick run by or run down with John and figured out the typical last minute things to do before loading up. As I figured, I was involved in more of the loading up part. About two hours later, all the equipment was strategically packed, including Duane, who had a last second dash (fast passed walk) to the cab of the truck as John was anxiously pulling out.

If anyone was wondering what conversations are had while pulling to the track, here is the 14 teams’ various topics that were covered this time:
Duane’s educational session on steering gears
How to make money with add ons
Theories on the GMC problems
Taxes
LLC’s, S-Corps, and Trusts
Finally, why there is no signs directing us to the Kopellah track. (some sort of township issue - lame)

We rolled through the gates to the track at about 5:30 and parked by 34 team. (Thanks for paying my entrance fee by the way John) As we started to unload, we were soon to find out that they were pumping our #3 cylinder for compliance checks. This would prove to throw us about 20 minutes behind schedule, but passed with no problems. Duane and Cole got the 14 car put back together and it was time to push off. If you were curious, John chose the #14 for his number as he was a big A.J. Foyt fan when he was younger.

John went out and ran some hot laps and scaled the car. The track was looking unusually wet for Kopella and this turned out to cause some fairly large ruts. Cole and Duane talked through the set ups for the heat and were a little on edge, but decided to go with what they talked about and see how that plays out to hold the car down through the rough track. John started inside second row behind the 29 of Thomas.

Thomas got a little swirly in the first corner and John was able to get underneath him. About two turns later, I hear a “woop” from Cole as he knew the car was fast. John was able to pull a nice pass as he slid under Tostenson’s 34 car as they we exiting turn four to take the lead. He then pulled away from the field to grab the heat victory.

John pulled into the pits and got out of the car. What’s one of the first things to come out of his mouth? “Dad, can I have some money for a cheeseburger?” I just had to shake my head and laugh. Because of the ruts that had developed in the track, the decision was made to blade the track during intermission which turned into a 45 minute break. The track stayed fairly tacky after that, but this took away most of the ruts. Cole, Duane, and John tossed around the idea about a different set up with the car, but decided against any major changes. Cole figured they were going to be a little loose, but the track was pretty unpredictable at this point. Because of that noted cheeseburger, John had to run off for a quick reliever before the race. Normally this isn’t something worth noting, but it comes into play a little later in the evening. A last second shock change was aborted. John was pushed out for the start of the competition race.

It didn’t take long to realize that a little loose, turned into a lot loose. John was struggling a little bit with his timing with traffic around, as he wanted to move to the high side of the track. As John was entering turns one and two, another car had spun. John tried to get below, but clipped it with his right rear. This sent John in the air for a quick barrel roll, then the car stood up on its nose for what seemed to be a minute, and then slammed back down directly on the frame as the suspension was already broken at this point bringing the car to a rest on all fours.

Cole started to pace off to the trailer saying we’ll have to grab the new wing, shocks, and trailing arms to get this thing together quick for the main. As we were about to take off, we noticed John wasn’t popping out of the car as expected. The safety crews were on scene quickly and were able to get John out on the backboard and off to the hospital. It was great to have some experienced guys there for this. They did a great job. Duane was able to accompany him for the blinking light ride. He had taken xrays at the St. Croix hospital and found there were fractures so they sent him for another ride to Regions in St. Paul. John had later stated he was only a little concerned when he was being pulled from the top of the cage and lying backwards that the guys would be able to hold him as they didn’t have great leverage at that point.

Cole and I were left at the track to get the car put back together enough and get everything loaded up. We’d like to thank all the people that stopped by and offered to help at the time. After we figured out how to get back to the shop, we unloaded everything and anxiously wanted to get to see John, but to no avail. We wouldn’t be able to see him until the morning.

We strolled into Regions after a parking debacle which found us parked in three different spots before we could settle on it. We found John’s wing and room and he was sleeping upon arrival. I don’t think we were the two faces he was dreaming of when he woke up to see us. John is a fairly spirited guy, but I think the drugs were still helping his cause a little during our conversation. He talked through the wreck and then joked about buying a boat and just going fishing for awhile. But, he seemed to re-evaluate that decision as he was saying it. Also, it turns out he was very lucky he had that bowel 5 minutes before that wreck, so he didn’t have to worry so much about the laxatives he was given by the medical staff. He was giving the nurses a hard about making him stay in bed, but he has to stay until his brace gets made as he had compression fractures on two vertebrate.

At one point as the doctors were running tests, they asked John if he knew his name, and John comes back with “Batman.” He said they didn’t quite find the humor in that as much as he did. This may stick to be the new nickname, as a pre-race interview identified that John doesn’t have one yet. The rest of the time was spent conversing on the randoms and to no avail trying to figure out how we were going to roll John past the nurses’ station to get him to Alary’s as we were so close to it at Regions. Glad you are in good spirits and still cracking jokes! Have a speedy recovery.

On a side note, Barickman seemed to also sustain an arm injury, maybe they could have carpooled. Last I had heard it was a badly bruised arm from catching a rut and bouncing it off the seat.

-Kodee

Thank you all!!

Friday was a quick reminder for us all how quickly things can change. Thank you so much for everyone that came over and offered help!

John also wants to extend a very special thanks to the track safety crew.

John suffered compression fractures in 2 vertebrae ending our season. John will be fitted with a brace on Monday 6/15 and then should be released from the hospital and will then be required to wear the brace for around 3 months.

Good luck to everyone the rest of the season. I'm sure you'll see us at the track occasionally.

Cole

...guess we were due.

Our weekend of new dates turned out to be that weekend that we all know is part of the price of showing up at the track with a trailer full of parts a perfect car and a positive attitude. A test to see how strong your attitude is and just how many parts you have that you may need. Well our parts came up short and our attitudes met it half way and we survived to try another day. In the famous words of Mr. Petty "I'd rather be lucky than good any day.". We started the weekend off with what is yet to be confirmed as a bad shock in hot laps. I commented to John after that I wasn't sure he stayed on the "Full 8 seconds". Our car looked like a bull in a rodeo in hot laps to say the least. I'd love to see video of that short ride! We managed to settle the ole girl back down for the heat race and scored an amazing start....at the first green flag. The second time our good friend Mr. Graf was not as at sleep at the wheel and we got off second and settled for second. This lead us to what I call the Dash...Where we had a momentary rocket ship...but one of our old buddies, who seems quietly content to methodically destroy our front end parts weather it be before or after the green flag, did a nice piece of work and took a steering gear with as well this time. So that puts him at 1 front axle, 2 tie rods, 2 drag links, a hand full of radius rods, front panhard, and a steering gear...to our one front wing. We'll give him the win...no need to continue to prove your point!

After a relaxed rainy Saturday in the shop our second steering gear is nearly modified to fit. Mark one more check in the spare parts list!

With a little luck hopefully we have what we need to stay in front of our fans the rest of the year! Thanks for supporting us and see you soon!

Cole

Added race dates!

As a typical dirt racing team we like to follow the common practice of preparation lasting until the final second and inevitable final moment changes in everything including schedule! That being said we will be racing this Friday June 5th at Kopellah and tentatively the following Saturday at Jackson! See you all at the track!

The 14 team.