Having emailed Pascal about his recent accident, as the only other owner of a single colour Atom, he's replied in detail and has asked me to post it on the Forum as follows below. We all sympathise with you Pascal and hope that your recovery time is as short as possible. I've done as you asked and corrected your (few) writing errors, but your English is far, far superior to my Belgian!
Pascal's email:-
Dear Jo,
Thanks for the email. The accident was rather bad. At the moment I'm in the hospital waiting until Wednesday when they'll perform some more surgery on my "best" leg. Luckily my passenger is already home recovering from one broken leg. I have both legs heavily broken (one more or less destroyed under the knee. I have to say it is a great chassis and I wouldn't choose any another car to make that crash in again.
It was a freak accident. The car had been with the Belgian importer after another crash at the Zolder track. I spun the car there and a followin BMW-racing car hit me full-frontal at a tuition day in March. So I took it to the importer and had it completely repaired. I took it back from importer Debussere Friday night and on my way home I stopped to show a friend, who's a very talented motor-racer, the car. We decided to take a small ride and when I took off from his place in 2nd and shifted to 3rd the engine started on a life of its own, revving beyond the red line.
The car moved like a rocket and at first I couldn't get it out of gear. Meanwhile we were at travelling at massive speed and 50 meters from a T-crossing. The rear Alcon brakes were no match for the overpowered wheels, so I could only decide on how best to crash it into a concrete wall. Turning to the right would have been too dramatic for my passenger, and turning left for me, so I hit it front on to make sure the chassis could absorb as much energy as possible.
Afterwards people that testified to the police declared that lots of smoke came from the engine bay after we started, but what has really happened will have to be found out later.
Meanwhile some newspapers have posted that we were racing in the streets and it has been big news around here... It's a pity because I always try to make people understand that streets aren't for racing; tracks are, and then again I'm not competent enough to race - that's why I spend my track time on tuition days.
Doctors don't know if I will fully recover and tell me I'll know more within half a year.
However I'm confident it will work out ok.
Can you take my writing mistakes out of this text and post it onto the A.A.O.C.
Thanks for all the messages and emails from all the guys
Pascal
