Jay Drake here, (using my wifes login.)

I want to interject here as this topic hits close to me. Kara was one of my very best freinds. She was also a fierce competitior of mine while we raced TQ midgets on the west coast. A very talented driver. I was at the race that day, in fact I had just won the TQ feature. I sat on Kara's LR tire as she got ready to push off for the main and she congratulated me for the victory and told me that after her race she would be my trophy girl, and that if she won, I would be hers. These were the last words we ever spoke.
I stood at the fence and watched the race. As I remember it, Kara had made contact with another car a lap prior to her accident. She had an old style Fontana engine, which had the injectors sticking out the left side of the car quite far. When hers and the other car bumped side to side in the corner the injectors got askewed, subsequently when Kara mashed the throttle (she was a "masher") coming out of turn two, the throttle linkage flipped over center and hung wide open. As she approched the turn and lifting point, the car would not decelerate and her only option was to turn early onto the rumble strips which did then launch her car across the track into another and eventually up and into the crash wall.
It was a very hard thing to see, and still is a very sad memory.
Had the rumble strips not been there, perhaps the accident would not been as severe, but they were not the sole cause of it.
The following year, the race was called the Kara Hendrick memorial, and I was fortunate enough to win it as well. The two trophies are a part of my collection that I will keep forever.
It's good that Kara is remembered. I got to visit with her brothers Kenny and Danny (also former west coast TQ racers) recently in CA. as they remain good freinds.

Jay Drake