Crashing a racecar at upwards of 200 mph is by no means a gentle affair, and usually ends with the car receiving significant damage — if not a complete write-off — due to the force of the impact. Tom Blincoe learned quickly what happens when things go wrong on a pass in a Pro Modified car at the top end when his David Monday Race Cars-built 1963 Corvette endured a death-defying crash at the Outlaw Street Car Reunion V. Through some hard work and long days, the car was rebuilt and returned to the site of the accident, Beech Bend Raceway Park, for the NMCA Bluegrass Nationals.

Blincoe’s Corvette made its debut earlier this season and quickly proved it could be a player in the class. The car is powered by a unique 598 cubic-inch Chevrolet-based Hemi based around a set of custom Sonny’s Racing Components heads and a CN Blocks engine block that was designed by in-house at David Monday Race Cars. The engine gets its boost from a massive F3-136 ProCharger that has pushed the car into the 3.80s multiple times already in its brief existence.

During a nighttime session of qualifying for the Midwest Pro Mod Series at the Outlaw Street Car Reunion was when Blincoe went for his wild ride. At the conclusion of the run, the car turned and got air under its rear flanks, causing it to lift into the air, turn over, and slam back down on its rear section. To hear him explain the crash you would have thought he’d been through this type of ordeal before … but this was Blincoe’s first major incident while racing.

“To be honest with you when the car went in the air I thought, ‘man we’re going to hit the wall,’ and it wasn’t that bad. Then it started sliding and it kept sliding and sliding down the track. I thought I was fine because there wasn’t anything else to hit, and as long as the other car was off the track I wouldn’t have to worry about hitting him. It was sliding for so long I thought I was going to hit the sand. Tons of sparks were around me and that got scary because I thought there was going to be a fire.

“I scratched my hand on a screw when I got out of the car,” he goes on to explain. “That was the only injury I had from the crash. The next day I was out playing golf,” Blincoe says.

Monday (left) and Blincoe.

David Monday, who built the car and helps to maintain it, thought the worst when he saw the crash; but when he saw the car he realized it could have been much worse.

“A crash is never good, but if you’re to have one, Tom had the best kind possible. The rear wing, the back of the body, and back of the chassis took the brunt of the damage when it hit the wall before it pitched on the roof. When it got on the roof, it was grinding on the intake manifold and charge tubing after it tore half of the injectors off. It stayed on the eyebrow bar and windshield posts so I had to replace those since it ground them down pretty good after sliding on them. It shredded the body — the only thing left was the doors on the car.”

There were several different factors that came together at one unfortunate time to cause the crash. Monday understands this and has taken steps to help mitigate problems in the future for Blincoe when he’s behind the wheel.

“This was a perfect storm of things that caused the crash; things like this happen and you have to learn from them. We have implemented some new safety measures after the crash to help prevent this from happening again.”

In specific, the car now has a timed, electronic parachute release to deploy the parachutes at or near the finish line no matter the circumstance.

Not being one to waste time, Monday was on the phone as soon as they left the track to start finding parts for the car. First on the list was a body since there was literally nothing left of the original that was on the car. A new one was located in Panama City, Florida and Monday hit the road to pick it up, driving straight there from his shop in Tennessee. The car was then placed on the jig and torn down to see what needed to be replaced. While all that was happening engine builder Rick Hickman was tearing the engine down to make sure it was fine.

“In just a little over two weeks we replaced the body, pretty much all the back half of the car, redid the front half, added wheel tubs, interior parts, the blower piping, fuel cell, parts of the roll cage that had been ground down, intake manifold, and headers. Considering how bad the crash was it really wasn’t a lot, but when you have that tight of a window it adds up quickly,” Monday days.

Blincoe was blown away by the amount of work that Monday and his team did in such a short time.

“David and his crew worked some miracles to get this car going for the race.  He builds such a safe car and that is what kept things from being much worse than what it was. I can’t say enough about the safety he built into the car.”

After such a violent crash and extensive rebuild most would assume that getting Blincoe’s car to go down the track straight, let alone fast would have been difficult. Considering the car had been upside down just a few weeks before at Beech Bend Raceway, when Blincoe lit the boards with a 3.84 in testing and then a 3.89 in qualifying to make the show, the team was ecstatic, to say the least. Blincoe advanced to the second round in the field of 16, as well.

“He’s doing a great job in the car and I’m proud of him for doing what he needed to do. The car fought us a little bit during testing with a few different issues. He only has a couple of races under his belt with the car, and he has made the show every time so far at the three races we’ve been to. That’s great with a new car, new engine, and new Pro Mod driver,” Monday says.

With his first event back after the crash in the books, Blincoe doesn’t plan to stop racing anytime soon. The team will have the Corvette back out at the NMRA/NMCA All-Star Nationals this July with the goal of making the show and going rounds.