Texas Short Track racers affected by Hurricane Harvey

[NickHolt]

Texas Short Track Racers Affected by Hurricane Harvey

by  Rob Blount, Speed51.com 

Houston, TX - August 30, 2017 - Hurricane Harvey has left historic flooding in its wake in the greater Houston, Texas region, displacing thousands of families. The storm is now the greatest rainfall event on record in America. It has left flooding and water damage in its wake that has left some short track racers who live in the region almost speechless.

“I don’t think that’s anything you can really explain,” veteran Super Late Model racer Chris Davidson, from Friendswood, Texas, told Speed51.com when asked what the situation has been like.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. It looks like a war zone,” said Modifieds of Mayhem regular Johny Walker, who calls Pasadena, Texas, just southeast of Houston, home.

Both Walker and Davidson said they got lucky that the storm wasn’t as bad for them as it was for others. Their families are safe. Their homes were mostly spared. Others were not so fortunate.

As of Wednesday evening, the death toll from Harvey has risen to 21 people, according to NBC Nightly News on Twitter.

“We live on the Gulf Coast. We know how hurricanes work. But I don’t think anybody expected the amount of devastation that we got. It’s horrible,” Davidson said.  “I think (Friendswood) lost about 9,000 homes. 3,000 are totally gone. But we’re fine. I never lost the house.”

Walker was able to stay in his home and ride out the storm, but he did experience heavy flooding.

“I’m kind of at the highest point here in Pasadena. It got in my house and ruined the floors and stuff, but I wasn’t displaced. I was able to stay in my house and ride it out. But I didn’t think it was going to stop. There was one point when it was coming in my house that if it would have rained for another 30 minutes we’d have been done. I’ve just never seen that much water coming down. There was water over the hood of my truck.

“But hey, we’re okay.”

Walker said the most amazing thing has been the way people have come together.

“People have an uncanny ability that when stuff gets deep people pull together. It doesn’t matter where you’re at. From what I’ve seen, most of the rescues around here were done by civilians. People with little boats were here before any of the city services or state services. It was people saving people. Guys with their bass boats and whatever they had, they were in there first. It was pretty cool to see all that.”

Davidson was one of those people that did what he could to help others. He said he opened up his house as a shelter to his neighbors who did lose everything they owned due to the flooding.

Understandably, racing is far from the forefront of Davidson’s mind at the time being. When Speed51.com spoke with Davidson on the phone on Wednesday morning, he said he was just getting back to his office to put things back on the floor that he tried to keep safe from the impending flood.

He said, with a laugh, that his race cars are safe. He left them up the trailer because “There was no reason to unload anything.” He doesn’t see himself taking them out any time soon.

“We were going to Montgomery for the Alabama 200 in a couple of weeks, but I think we’ll still be cleaning up in a couple of weeks. We need to make sure everybody is taken care of before we go anywhere.”

Walker, third in Modifieds of Mayhem points, said he’s hoping to get life to start returning to normalcy soon, and that may include racing.

“As far as normalcy, I don’t know about that for a while for a lot of people. I was one of the fortunate ones. But we’re okay and we’ll hopefully be racing again in two weeks.”

For those who are looking to help in the relief efforts, you can text a $10 donation to the American Red Cross by texting HARVEY to 90999. You can also visit the American Red Cross’ website to donate.

[rebelracewriter]

I've seen on FB where a lot of racers have either taken their boats down to flooded areas to help with evacuations and/or loaded up their racecar trailers with supplies of food/clothes/water to take down to affected areas.

#racershelpingothers