Local Racer hurt in Race at Pacific Raceway
 

For those of you that follow Road Racing in the NW may know Steve Pfeiffer, He drives a Second Gen RX7 in Conference and was involved in a very serious crash going into turn 3A at Pacific Raceway . Here are some of the comments about his accident and condition from people that were there. Also an official (Jerry) had a medical issue at the same time while the crew was pulling Steve from his burning car.

Posted by Hal Hilton on Monday, August 06, 2007 - 02:05 pm:


Updates on Steve and Jerry:

I visited Steve Pfiefer this morning in the ICU at Harborview Medical
Center in Seattle. His condition is quite stable, however, he’s unable
to speak due to breathing tubes assisting his breathing. So, I did all
of the talking and he did all of the blinking!

Steve is going to be a very sore man for awhile after his dramatic
accident yesterday going down the hill into turn 3a. His nurse stated
that Steve broke his right forearm, suffered multiple rib fractures
including a punctured lung and appears to have broken some vertebra's
in his lower back. However, they will need to surgically repair and
set his right forearm before they can get a good look at any CT
pictures of his back. The nurse mentioned that his tests didn’t
indicate any smoke inhalation damage, so that is very good news
indeed.

Even in his limited ability to speak, Steve has already been giving
the nurses a hard time…which if you know Steve, is quite typical. The
word was that the tubes in his throat could be removed either this
evening or possibly tomorrow, however, I would suspect a bit longer
given the severity and number of broken ribs in his chest.

I told him everyone was keeping him in their thoughts and prayers and
are wishing him a speedy recovery. He blinked…which I read as a
heartfelt “Thank You”. As I learn more, I will update here.

I spoke with Jerry Coughran’s brother, John, this afternoon and was
told that Jerry is in a medically induced coma and is resting
comfortably at Auburn Regional Hospital. The coma, I was told, is to
allow for a cooling process to occur to allow the best possible amount
of healing for Jerry at this critical point. It isn’t yet clear as to
the exact reason for Jerry’s heart to fail yesterday, but the doctors
are conducting tests to find it and then treat accordingly. John said
that some of Jerry’s normal functions are beginning to return to
normal and we all hope and pray that all of them return soon.

Needless to say, Jerry and his family could use your prayers at this
very important time.

And finally, I would like to strongly acknowledge the quick and
selfless rescue efforts of everyone involved in responding to both of
these incidents yesterday as well as those who attended to Kai
Keliikoa on Saturday. Our Conference family of drivers, workers and
friends is very important to me and to see everyone pull together to
assist when it’s really needed, makes an Asst. Race Steward quite
proud.

Posted by Dave Haire on Monday, August 06, 2007 - 01:59 pm:

Being directly behind the incident as it unfolded, here's how it
appeared from the next position behind them. Steve's car ran up the
embankment and shot WAY up into the air - peoples comments of 15' are
not exaggerations. The car initially landed rear first, as I recall,
then flipped end for end at a very fast, violent rotation at least
twice, landed on its nose, flipped onto the roof and slid to a stop
slightly right of center track, tail headed downtrack, about 10 yards
short of T3-A. The rear flared up in flames immediately upon coming to
a rest, and by the time I could get my harness off, extinguisher loose
and out of the car the cockpit showed signs of fire too. The fire was
under control very quickly, but difficult to stop from re-igniting
every few seconds in flare-ups on the outside of the car around the
cell. The rear was crushed badly as Rick describes, the rear glass had
popped partially out and the muffler was embedded into the fuel cell
case, though I did not see a major rupture.

It was amazing to see a safety crew member crawl into that cockpit to
reassure the driver, all the while fuel was leaking down on them both
as we were hitting the flame re-ignitions as they popped up on the
outside. That's a real hero there, folks.

A pretty sobering "upgrade" race into the run group for me. I'm very
glad to hear the driver is doing as well as he is, and look forward to
meeting him.

If you know Steve he is still in the Hospital and would probably like to hear from some of his friends.

Thanks for letting us know. I just talked to Pat and he said Steve is going into surgery for his arm as we speak. Car is obviously totaled but the cage held up and saved his life. Steve is at Harborview Medical Center, room 216. Too early for a lot of visitors, but not too early to send cards and so forth.

Steve is no stranger to 'offs', as many of us know. I still remember those "Classic NASCAR" shows where every episode seems to show Steve being wrecked by Dale Earnhart Sr. and Daryl Waltrip, back in his Winston West days.

For those that don't know Steve Pfeifer, he has been racing for 40+ years in everything from Stock Cars at Daytona to Prototypes the at Nurburging. He was part of the race team (along with Dave Lemon of Mazdatrix, for example), that raced the 2nd gen GTU-S in RS class back in the late 80s and early 90s. Steve bought the cars from the team when it folded and still races them today in the same RS class, except in Conference (ICSCC) instead of SCCA. Before auto racing, he was an Olympic-class bicycle racer in the 50s. The guy is a real athlete, so I wouldn't be suprised to see him make a full recovery and get back in a race car, though I think his friends might like to see him pull a Mario Andretti and "retire" though stay involved in racing in just about every other respect.

aww that sucks, i hope he gets better soon.

+1

Michelle and I were at Pacific Raceways this Sunday when all this happened. The atmoshere was very solemn to say the least. I glad to know he is still with us and improving daily, I knew the wreck was a bad one when we saw the medevac fly in, you could also see the smoke from the wreck from turn 8, I wish him a speedy recovery.

I found this Email a Patient form on the Harborview Medical web site. I presume they print out the emails and deliver them to the patient. Anyway, I think it would be cool to let Steve know we care, even if we can't visit him in person. For the form, the room number (as of yesterday, anyway) was 216 and his name is spelled Steve Pfeifer. That should be all you need. If you don't know him personally, perhaps just a quick "get well soon" sort of message and identify yourself as a fellow rotor-head. I think he would appreciate that.