Langley’s Chris Doodson decided to start racing cars after he suffered four fractured vertebrae in his back while riding a motorcycle in traffic.
“I got hit by a drunk driver,” Doodson said.
“Then I went to [watch] the Molson Indy in Vancouver, and I thought that looked a whole lot safer.”
A good call, as it turned out.
Last year, Doodson was able to walk away from a spectacular wipeout in a California race.
“The car got away from me and I went backwards into a tire wall,” he recalled.
“I turned out okay, the car, not so much.”
A photograph of the aftermath showed the back end of the Honda had been forced against the roll cage and over the tires, crumpling the fiberglass.
In his more more than 15 years of racing, Doodson has always felt safer on a race track than he does in traffic.
“You know everyone [on a track] has the same goal and is going in the same direction — on the street, you have no idea,” he observed.
On the weekend, Dodson will take his Smithers McDonalds sponsored No. 73 Honda CRX to the Mission Raceway Park road course.
He will be racing with a new engine and transmission.
“I just got the car back together a couple of race weekends ago,” he explained.
he said the race is a good opportunity for a shakedown on a demanding course.
“I always say if you can do well at Mission, you can do well anywhere,” Doodson explained.
“It’s a twisty, tight little track.”
It will be the final race of the Sports Car club of B.C.’s championship season.
A full-time millwright who lives in Willoughby with his wife and two kids, Doodson relays on sponsors and some creative fundraising to compete.
This year, Doodson Motorsport has been selling t-shirts on line to raise money for the entry fee “of about a thousand bucks” to race in the premier American event for cars in his class, the 2020 Road America Runoffs in Wisconsin.
As of Wednesday, he was little more than half way to his goal.
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dan.ferguson@langleyadvancetimes.com
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