Steve Soper, the legend of Tin-top, emerged unscathed from a terrible twist of fate at the historic Brands Hatch Masters assembly last weekend when his Ford Mustang crossed the barriers at Stirlings.
Soper, 67, led the last lap of the pre-66 road race in the car he shared with Henry Mann, son of former Ford team leader Alan, when the accelerator remained open and the Mustang crossed the barriers.
Fortunately, it landed on its wheels, wedged between the Armco on the left and the trees on the right.
The race won a red flag with a minute to play and the victory given to Rob Fenn, moment in some other Mustang.
Soper, whose professional career ended with a neck injury sustained at Brands Hatch in 2001, escaped the twist of fate and visited the circuit as a spectator on Sunday, but told Autosport that something had been “ripped” into his left arm.
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Explaining the accident, Soper said: “The throttle remained completely open after Dingle Dell, then, when I braked for Stirlings, unfortunately it didn’t need to slow down.
“It’s a second gear turn, but the challenge is to get to about 160 km/h.
“When it happens, I didn’t anticipate it would be a big accident.
“I think I would hurry or I couldn’t touch anything, but very temporarily it has become apparent that it would become a very clever derivation.
Soper congratulated the curators and medical groups who looked after the turn of fate and said he had no considerations of protection on the Brand Hatch Grand Prix circuit.
“It’s a great circuit, but if you’re wrong or you have a problem, it doesn’t take prisoners,” he said.
“It’s probably a component of adrenaline, I don’t have any challenge with the circuit.”
The heavily broken Mustang will be repaired, Soper remains “baffled” by the cause of the locked throttle and will update “everything that can be” until the source of the challenge is discovered.
Soper added that the twist of fate “doesn’t really replace anything” related to his continued involvement on ancient occasions and still plans to attend the assembly of the historic Zandvoort Grand Prix next weekend at Mark Martin’s Lotus Cortina.