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In 1967 I was serving in the US Army and I knew that I would soon be transferred from Ft. Belvoir, Virginia, to Ft. Benning, Georgia. I was given some leeway on exactly when I would have to make the move, so my planning involved checking the racing schedules for several of my favorite series and checking the schedule of events at my favorite tracks. The USAC Sprint series was at the top of my racing events list, and Dayton Speedway was my preferred track.
Lo and behold, the USAC sprinters were scheduled to visit Dayton at about the same time Uncle Sam was expecting me to pack my duffle bag and change duty stations! A telephone call to my racing pals in Dayton set it all up and before long we were sitting in the ancient (it seemed to me) Dayton Speedway grandstand.
Mike Mosley, a West Coast hot shoe, was driving AJ Watson's sprint car at Dayton. The car was powered by a Ford double overhead cam (DOHC) engine. These engines were somewhat rare and were usually used in Indy cars. The car was blazing fast and a real handful as it turned out.
In his qualifying attempt, with the Ford engine screaming, Mosley lost control coming onto the front stretch. The car crashed violently, rolling side over side all the way down the front stretch and into the first corner where it came to rest on its wheels. Now these were the days before full rollcages, and the driver safety gear was spartan. With Mosley slumped in the cockpit of the sprinter we were certain that he was dead. The crash completely silenced the crowd. I think you could have heard a pin drop.
We watched the rescue workers race to the wreckage and begin to extract the driver. And that's when the track announcer said, "Ladies and gentlemen: a new track record." Despite the fact that Mosley had been out of control coming out of the fourth turn and then rolled side over side across the starting line his qualification time had bested a host of other drivers who completed their lap in one piece.
Eventually they got Mosley out of the car and into an ambulance and then off to the hospital. Sometime later in the afternoon the track announcer interviewed AJ Watson. He was very somber and said that the condition of the car was of no importance. What was important, he said, was that Mike survive.
I seem to remember that during that interview a note was handed to the announcer. Not only did Mosley survive, he was waiting at the hospital and needed someone to come and pick him up so that he could get back to the track! And when the announcer resumed the interview with Watson, the car owner's tone had changed dramatically. The car was too much for Mosley, he said. Mosley lacked the experience to be able to control the car. And on and on he went, thoroughly trashing Mosley's abilities. Clearly, now that Mosley had survived, Watson's focus was on his car, a gem that a driver like Mosley wasn't worthy of racing!
Postscript: Mike Mosley was no slouch when it came to driving a race car. He was in a position to win the Indy 500 twice before crashing both times. He did win Indy car events at Trenton (1971), Phoenix (1974), and he won three times at Milwaukee (1975, 1976, and 1981). Ironically, after cheating death any number of times in race cars, Mosley died in a road accident when he swerved his van off the road, possibly to avoid hitting an animal. He was dead at the scene.