Here is the entire article...I think everyone needs to read it. My thoughts and prayers are with their entire family...
Steve Iverson still in ICU after Seattle national-event crash
By Susan Wade
SEATTLE -- Contrary to an NHRA report, Super Comp driver Steve Iverson did not escape with simply a bruised lung from his Friday, July 18 accident during the Schuck's Auto Supply Nationals at Pacific Raceways.
The 62-year-old Vancouver, Washington, resident remains in the Trauma/Intensive Care Unit at Seattle's Harborview Medical Center. His injuries include five broken ribs on the right side, two punctures of the right lung, bruises to both lungs, and bruises to the right side of his heart.
His son and occasional crew chief, Steve Iverson Jr., said Sunday morning, July 27, that his father had been heavily sedated for most of the past week and has been breathing with the help of a ventilator for about a week. A trachea tube has replaced the ventilator, he said.
He said the racer has been able to communicate with the family "very little" since the crash during the final session of time trials for the Super Comp class that Friday.
Despite the severity of his father's injuries, Iverson Jr. said, "He's improving." However, he said doctors have not been able to give the family a target date for the elder Iverson's release from the hospital.
That's quite a contrast from the NHRA report that says in its entirety:
"Steve Iverson was transported to Harbor View[sic] Medical Center in Seattle after his dragster went out of control on the top end last night during final time trials. He was transported for evaluation where[sic] doctors found he suffered a bruised lung in the incident, but no other injuries. He was kept overnight at the hopital[sic] for observation."
The accident occurred in the right lane near the finish line. The Super Comp class competes on the full 1,320-feet course but ran that night after the nitro classes, which are restricted for now to a 1,000-foot distance.
"They ran the fuel cars before Super Comp," Iverson Jr., who also runs a '64 Barracuda Super Stock/Super Gas car, said. "And they did zero track prep. The ran five pairs, and they had trouble. They were complaining about bad conditions."
He said NHRA, in response, cleaned the left lane. But, Iverson Jr. said, "I was told by multiple people that they never touched the right lane. The guy running next to my dad said he got loose and got all over the place, too."
Iverson Jr. said reports that the engine in his dad's car let go and that the axle broke are false.
"The axle was not broke. There were no fluids coming out of the car," he said. "That leads me down one path, that the car got into some kind of oil or some kind of fluid. It happened between 1,000 feet and 1,320 feet -- right where everything gets spilled or comes out of the fuel cars."
He said the family has a "very, very good videotape" filmed by a spectator in the stands who had shot a particular car earlier and just happened to keep the camera rolling for another couple of pairs of cars, just on a whim.
The car, Iverson Jr. said, was equipped with a Canton Racing Products-made Accusump oil accumulator and that the device was still holding pressure. That, he said, indicated that the motor didn't let go or throw a rod.
"The car got into something on the track, got loose, and hit the wall. People I trust, all Super Comp racers, told me that," he said, adding that the family isn't sure how much the driver will remember of the wreck when he is able to communicate.
He said the car might have had a flash fire but that the Safety Safari was extremely quick to extinguish any flames. He said a fire like that might have resulted from some rear-end oil, or some gear oil.
"The car is destroyed. It broke in half. All the safety equipment did exactly what it was supposed to do," he said, noting ironically that his father's sponsors include Security Race Products, an Issaquah, Washington-based company that supplies safety equipment for all forms of motorsports. (Toyo Tires and Baxter Auto Parts, of Vancouver, Washington, are Iverson Sr.'s other primary sponsors.)
Iverson Jr. said his father "has been racing ever since I can remember. He raced lots of things, but he's always at heart been a drag racer." Iverson Sr. has raced in the Super Comp class in NHRA's Division 6 for the "past four or five years," his son said.
"My dad saved and scratched and did everything he could to buy that car," he said. "But I think his racing days are over, even when he recovers. I don't know where he would get the money to buy another car."
It has been expensive enough for the family's extended stay in Seattle, about two hours north of their Vancouver home. "If it hadn't been for our very, very good friend Dan Benham, who's also a Super Comp racer, I don’t know what we would've done. He literally gave us his house to use. He said, 'I'll sleep in the motor home. You just take the house.' Can you imagine what the hotel bill would've been?"
Iverson Jr. said anyone who wishes to send cards or donations to his father at the hospital may do so. The address is: Steve Iverson Sr., c/o Harborview Medical Center, 325 Ninth Avenue, Seattle, WA 98104.
