Hunter Abbott has admitted that his huge shunt at
Oulton Park was the biggest of his career and has praised the strength of his Ginetta G50 in ensuring he escaped with only minor injuries.
Abbott, who managed to secure a last minute deal to partner Rob Austin in the opening rounds of the Avon Tyres British GT Championship, was battling with the Aston Martin N24 of Peter Snowdon on the eighth lap of race one when contact on the run to Cascades sent the Ginetta spinning off to the outside of the circuit.
Having flipped over the barrier on the edge of the circuit, the little Ginetta went into a series of rolls before coming to rest, devoid of most of its body work, on its roof – where it then caught fire.
“I was racing against the silver Aston Martin and we went into the first corner with him blocking the inside line,” Abbott explained to
Crash.net. “I went to the outside and then cut back down the inside on the exit. As we went down the hill into Cascades I felt a tap on the back left hand corner and it tipped me into a spin.
“The car gripped and went straight towards the barriers almost head on. As soon as I was on the grass there was little I could do and I was doing about 116mph. I was just a passenger and I thought to myself ‘this will be a big one' and I waited for the wall to hit.
“When the car hit the wall the back end came up and I thought to myself that it was going to roll so I just sat there and waited for it to stop. When it hit the ground for the fourth or fifth time, I thought it better end soon! When it did stop, the car ended up on its roof and there was a feeling of relief that it had stopped but then the situation got worse as the car burst into flames.”
Although Abbott was unable to get out of the drivers door of the car due to damage sustained in the accident, he was able to scramble out of the passenger side of the wrecked car where marshalls were able to extinguish flames that were licking at his race suit and he walked to a waiting ambulance before being treated in the medical centre.
