Crash ends Gugelmin's consecutive start streak

The 38-year old Brazilian was bruised from head to toe in a massive crash on Friday at Texas Motor Speedway, but he returned to the track on Saturday and counted his blessings.

"The car did the job," Gugelmin said. "The seat collapsed, which it was supposed to do in a situation like that, and the head restraint broke ­ again, by design. I didn't expect or want to be the guy to test the HANS Device, but the truth is that it probably saved my life. I had two major accidents in the space of about six seconds, and I walked out of the hospital a few hours later. That wouldn't have been possible just a few years ago, and it shows just how seriously CART takes the safety issue.

"I'm really sore," he added. "But that's a natural thing. My organs got thrown around quite a lot in the accident. That's why I'm not going to be able to try to run on Sunday. If this was Milwaukee, maybe I could. But I don't think I'm physically up to running 600 kilometres around this place in the shape I'm in at the moment."

Gugelmin told Autosport.com that the higher than anticipated speeds at Texas probably didn't factor into his accident.

"The speed comes from the nature of the track," he commented. "The banking disguises the balance of the car, and at the same time it creates a bigger window for a set-up you can work with. The critical area is when you unwind the wheel coming off the banking. You get no feeling from the car. You're constantly enduring lateral and vertical loads at this track. That's what makes it more difficult on the cars and the drivers than any other oval we run. You're subjected to some kind of G-force for three-quarters of the lap here."