http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/news/fatal-bathurst-crash-a-blank-for-survivor/story-e6frg6o6-1111112419059
Recovering: V8 Supercars driver David Clark, with Gus the therapy dog in a western Sydney hospital yesterday, says the crash was a ‘freak accident’. Picture: Brad Newman Source: The Australian
FROM his hospital bed, V8 Supercars driver David Clark struggles to remember the few seconds before the crash that claimed the life of fellow competitor Mark Porter earlier this month.
The crash at a support race on the Friday before the Bathurst 1000, where the winner received the inaugural Peter Brock memorial trophy, cast a pall over Australia’s leading car racing event. Porter, 31, left behind a wife and one-year-old son.
Still receiving treatment for multiple pelvic fractures, a broken arm and a broken leg, Clark spoke publicly of the crash for the first time yesterday from his bed at Nepean Hospital, in Sydney’s outer western suburbs.
In a croaky voice, as a result of feeding tubes that had been put down his throat, he said he remembered nothing of the accident or the race itself.
“To tell you the truth, before the actual race is the last thing I remember,” he said. “I can remember everything about the weekend until just before the race when I was riding around the pit area on the bike before I got suited up. The accident has gone by. I am trying to get on top of it all. I don’t recall anything of the race. I am not in a rush to remember it.”
Porter’s Holden Commodore was left stranded in the middle of the circuit after spinning out of control while exiting a corner. Seconds later, Clark, travelling at 200km/h in his Ford, slammed into Porter’s Commodore, unable to avoid the collision.
The 28-year-old is likely to be moved tomorrow to a hospital in Adelaide to be closer to his wife and three young children.
He said he had not yet managed to speak to Porter’s family, although he said he had always got on well with him.
“While I’m grateful for all the care and best wishes I’ve received, my personal thoughts go out to Mark’s family,” Clark said.
He said he had watched the accident on the internet, and it was as if he had not been in the car at all.
No one in the racing fraternity is blaming him for the accident.
“It was a freak accident,” he said repeatedly. “There wasn’t that much we could do about it.”
Clark said he was keen to rejoin the Optima Sport team and expected to be racing in the first-round Fujitsu V8 Supercars series in Adelaide in March next year. “I have spoken to all the guys, they are 100 per cent behind me,” he said.
“Anything involving speed and metal is going to be dangerous,” he said. “That is motorsport. The cars are built for safety but also for speed. You are travelling at up to 300km/h. You are going to get hurt at some stage. I love it, that’s the simple fact, I love it. Ask people why they go BASE jumping, they know they could die the next time they do it. I would be back tomorrow if they would let me.”
As it is, Clark is expected to spend the next six weeks in hospital. He said his previous most serious accident was in 1993 when he cracked three vertebrae in Germany while competing in the Junior World Go-Kart championship.