Huset’s legend Terry McCarl injured in crash at Knoxville

Terry McCarl, the winningest driver in Huset’s Speedway history and eight-time 410-sprint car champion, was injured Saturday night at Knoxville Raceway during the National Sprint League race at the famed track south of Des Moines.

McCarl started third in the feature event and had just completed the first lap of the 25-lap race. According to several sources, McCarl’s left front steering arm broke coming down the front stretch, rendering the car uncontrollable.

The car never flipped, and McCarl was able to get the car stopped, but in a precarious position, just at the end of the straightaway and entering the first turn. McCarl’s familiar No. 24 came to a stop sideways in the turn, with the left side of the car exposed to oncoming traffic.

Brad Loyet, who was running 18th at the time, hit McCarl directly between the cockpit and the left rear tire, the most unprotected part of a sprint car. McCarl’s car suffered major damage, and the seat bar that runs beneath the driver’s seat was bent from the impact.

McCarl suffered a fractured vertebrae, and his return to racing is unknown. He was able to get out of the car and walk to a nearby ambulance.

The prognosis for suffering such an injury ranges from being sidelined from three weeks to a year. The next few days will tell a lot for McCarl’s future after the swelling from the injury has subsided.

“I’ve never broken a vertebrae, but I’ve had many scares,” said Jimmy Kite, five-time Indianapolis 500 starter and former USAC sprint car driver. “The hardest part of the conversation with your doctor is ‘What if it happens again.’ As a driver, you always want to get back in the car. But in this situation with the severity of the crash and where he was hit, he’s going to want to obviously do the proper treatment.”

McCarl is sixth in the championship points in the NSL with two top-10 finishes in the first three races of the year. Earlier in the year, he won a World of Outlaws race in Las Vegas, the 10th of his career.

“We’re as quick as we’ve ever been right now,” McCarl said Friday, the day before the accident. “I don’t have any plans of quitting anytime soon.”