NMRA Renegade Racer Curtis Catalon Smashes The Wall At Norwalk

Summit Motorsports Park in Norwalk, Ohio, hosted the NMRA‘s second visit to the legendary facility this past weekend. As is the custom at the Norwalk facility, the track had teeth all weekend long, as Edelbrock Renegade Racer Curtis Catalon found out in the third round of qualifying on Saturday.

Catalon had reconfigured his car from its previous Modular Muscle combo for the Renegade class for this season, enlisting the guys at Triangle Speed Shop to build him a 4.6L Four-Valve Modular powerplant for his 2003 Cobra. Just recently, Catalon switched to a Vortech YSi supercharger and was looking to crack into the eight-oh’s, given the supercharger’s performance on comparable machines like that of Alton Clements. 

As he was still working the bugs out of the combination, Catalon finished Friday’s qualifying sessions with a 10.12 at only 95 MPH, but had the car set on kill for the third round of qualifying. Right at the hit, the car hiked the wheels up sky-high and started drifting to the left, nearly brushing the wall as it came down.

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Catalon corrected to keep the car off the left wall, but the car immediately shot to the right and went straight across the track, bashing into the right-side retaining wall hard and ending Catalon’s weekend.

Thankfully, Catalon exited the car nearly immediately under his own power, no worse for wear, but the same can’t be said for his pretty white Cobra. At this time we’re unsure whether an issue from the wheelstand caused the crash, but it’s very possible the steering was damaged and locked up, which wouldn’t have given Curtis much of a chance to save the car. 

Word comes to us that Curtis has plans to rebuild the car if possible, although the team has not had a chance to determine whether that’s a reality given the magnitude of the crash. We’re just glad to hear that he walked away without any injuries.