My son and I witnessed the accident and were the first one’s on the scene. We were at a College Formula SAE racing event at UT Arlington and heard the unmistakable roar of a big block and tires squealing on the road near the event. I looked up in time to see a Cobra spin off the road backwards, disappear over the embankment and saw a huge splash.
We sprinted to the accident and saw the car upside down in the creek as the driver popped up out of the water. We made certain that he was ok, that no one else was with him and then helped him out of the creek. He said he had punched it and his foot got stuck between the throttle and brake pedal. The worst part, he explained with his head hanging down, was that the car was not his!
The owner turned out to be a local businessman that I know who had added this Kirkham 427 KMS/SC to his collection recently. He had asked one of his employees to drive it to the competition to park and display as a conversation piece.....the trip ended one block too short.
The professor that organized the Formula SAE event made it to the scene and is a good friend of the owner, so he made the call to let him know what happened. The owner is a great guy and his concern was for his employee….he said the car could be rebuilt or replaced. I volunteered to stay and work with the recovery company.
The first wrecker driver to arrive said it would not be a problem to drag the car out of the creek. I explained that it was a Cobra and that there would be no dragging involved. He said that it was just a car to him, so I told him to get on the radio and get someone out there with whatever equipment necessary to get the car back on its tires without further damage. A huge wrecker showed up and then the owner of the wrecker company came out to run the recovery.
They did a very good job and the owner was patient with my requests...put pads under the lifting chains, lift it slowly to keep the water weight from buckling the panels, don't let any body panel touch the ground (while they were flipping it end to end).......
I was amazed at how little damage there was to the car. One wheel had a portion of the lip broken off, the underside of the headers and frame were scuffed (but not badly), the trunk latch was bent, the front fender behind the driver’s front wheel was buckled and the windshield was broken. I'm sure that there is water damage to the electrical equipment, and some of that will need to be replaced. If they got the water flushed properly from the engine, trans and rear end there should not be permanent damage to any of that. I expect that there is other damage that will be found upon detailed inspection, but overall the Kirkham looked good considering what it went through.
All in all, it could have been a lot worse. The driver was not injured and the polished aluminum body was gleaming in the sunlight after they took an unexpected swim together!
DM
Here's what happened
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