You can not ever be too safe, no such thing: Part 1 - by Vikki Paxton

The Reason for Safety

To understand why I am so passionate about safety in any form of motorsport, my abbreviated story explains. You can not ever be too safe, no such thing. This does not mean you won't take risks when you are racing, you will or you are not a race car driver. It means you do everything to minimise that risk, no excuses. If you can afford to race you can afford safety equipment FIRST.

If I can stop one person from being injured then it’s worth opening a part of my life to you that I only want to bury.

I was young and had a God given talent to drive anything over the limit and control it. I was fiercely competitive and had a huge ego. I didn’t believe a situation would arise that I could not control. I had years of karts and sedan experience and was lucky enough to have some amazing mentors guiding me. I had done a test day with Peter Brock and impressed the heck out of him!

I took to Formula Ford like a duck to water. I was leading the NSW Formula Ford series. Many people were telling me I was talented and we were thinking of going to England. We were running the Driver to Europe series at Amaroo. We had motor problems and I qualified badly. We fixed the issue and I said no probs its a challenge to drive as far up the grid as I can. Barreled past cars up the hill, they were slow across bitupave braking (why I don’t know) and bunching. Pffft I thought to myself I'll go round the outside.

As I went past around the outside for some reason a driver came out of the pack drove straight at my back wheel and turned me around. In that split second, I decided 'shit' I’m going to lose places. I'll flick it down a gear, spin it 360 and keep going, hopefully not lose too many positions. Unbeknown to me when he hit my gearbox he bent the linkages, and when I took the car out of top gear I could not get any gears and was stranded broadside online over a blind very quick crest. Double yellows were out, no one slowed but everyone missed me, except a back runner that panicked when he came over hill flat biscuit. He locked all brakes, had his front wheels turned and I was straight in his path. I yelled through my helmet get off your f*king brakes (as his wheel were turned had he got off the brakes his car would have steered around me or at least not hit me directly) but typical male didn’t listen !!!! The next few seconds was totally slow motion and took forever. I took the direct hit from his car straight into my hip. In that instant, my life and my families’ lives changed forever.

As I realised he was going to hit I turned the motor off (had to protect my car), straightened my head to my body and crossed my arms to my shoulders. As he hit I felt my bones breaking one at time..... hip, pelvis, back, ribs, collarbone, jaw and I wet myself, thank God I was nearly empty. I couldn’t feel my legs and the pain was so intense I thought I was going to pass out. I wanted to scream but couldn’t. I wanted to throw up but couldn’t. I had to concentrate so hard just to breathe. The marshals were there very quickly and words will never thank them enough for what they did for me. You guys rock.

From a competitive 86 Van Diemen Formula Ford...

I will never forget the look on my Mums face when I was told I would never walk again......
Words can not explain the pain, the despair, the depression, the helplessness, the crushing loss of the person you used to be, the lost dreams, the impact on your family, the complete loss of confidence, waking up every morning not wanting to live, the humiliation of no control over your body, etc etc etc.

With the help of my family and the most amazing man in the world, my husband, who knew when to push and when to back off, he reached down from cloud 9 and dragged me back up.... but huni did you have to drag me up with both your hands around my neck ??

To a complete wreck

I decided I could not live without motor racing and I wanted to drive competitively again. I became obsessed with turning this accident around. After 15 years of sheer hell, pig headedness and grueling rehab I walk, run and now have an F3 open wheeler with a Lexus V8 for hillclimbs and sprints.

Now I’m a pain in the bum with a big ego again. I still have many issues from the accident but now I control them, they don’t control me.

Fig 1

Fig 2

It is a little difficult to see the extent of the damage in a photo. To give an idea both brake discs on the right side were cracked completely in half THROUGH the hub. Pretty well everything was cracked.

Fig 3

I was crushed approx 6” into the chassis. When the chassis is straight you sit with your body against the chassis rails on both sides. (Fig 1)

The full impact from the other car was taken in the middle chassis rail and where my hip was positioned.

In the photo below the horizontal floor, brace saved me from being totally crushed and saved my life.

Do not risk safety for weight.

The New Challenge – Mr Fyme

I now have a Formula 3. It came to us as a bare chassis. We grafted a Lexus V8 as a power plant with an F3000 Indy Lola complete rear end to cope with the horsepower. It was a major and challenging build to undertake and we have fabricated everything by hand. We literally threw it together (in 2 years!!) and put it on the track to make sure I had put my demons to bed before we went the rats on it. We were very competitive but not winning. As expected with such a major project and mating parts that are not meant to be mated, we pushed the car to eleven tenths to reveal all the flaws, and in doing so had a few hair raising offs. The car is now in a million pieces being redesigned, rebuilt and many many more hours of fabrication to sort all the issues that were uncovered.

We will be running hillclimbs and sprints. Our aim is to win the Queensland Sprint Championship and the Australian Hillclimb Championship. A goal I firmly had sighted throughout my recovery and kept me going on the many days I wanted to end it. There are some top notch drivers and cars competing and we hope to give them a run for their money. If nothing else……. I made it back !!!!

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