Harry Teal emerges unscathed from his roll-over, and salutes the crowd. (Picture by Andrew Le Poidevin, 0574896)
HARRY TEAL is looking to be back in action in his Fiesta Special at the end of the month after he spectacularly crashed his car at the top of Le Val des Terres in Monday’s hill climb.
The early indications were that the 54-year-old had written off his Ford Fiesta XR2 MK1 when it hit the protruding bank just before the final bend, causing the vehicle to roll and skid up the road on its side.
Teal got out unscathed and was able to give a salute to the crowd and he now says that the car should be OK to race again at the next meeting on bank holiday Monday 26 May. ‘I’m fine: just my pride is dented,’ said Teal, who owns Portinfer Timber Yard.
‘Hopefully the car will be back for the next hill climb.’
Racing in the 1,401-1,800cc modified saloons class, it was on his third run of the day when the incident happened.
Teal cannot remember too much about it.
‘I was doing 70mph up on the straight and as I turned I hit a slippery patch, the back just broke away from me and I didn’t have a chance,’ he said.
‘When you’re upside down and the car is going all over the place, you don’t know where you are.’
According to experienced motorsport photographer Andrew Le Poidevin, who witnessed the crash and took an amazing sequences of pictures of it, the car rolled once and slid up the road on its passenger side for about 40 yards before coming to rest by the last bend right at the top.
‘It was the speed and the distance it slid on its side that made it something to see,’ said Le Poidevin.
Teal says the car, which he has raced for the last 10 years, needs its roof straightened out and new wheel arches, with other cosmetic work required.
Remarkably, it was not written off and Teal was able to walk away.
He puts this down to the safety measures that he had installed in the vehicle.
‘When I built it, I built it strong,’ he said.
‘I do advise anyone taking up the sport to get the full safety gear. If I didn’t have that gear, I might have ended up in the ambulance and not here to carry on working today.’
Although this is only his second serious crash in his Fiesta, Teal does have something of a reputation in the pit lane for going all out.
‘When you leave the line, you give it 110%,’ he said.
‘You take up the sport to do your best.’
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