Hinchcliffe eager to get back behind the wheel after near-fatal accident

James Hinchcliffe knows he’s lucky to be alive.

The Canadian IndyCar racer almost bled to death when a piece of his suspension pierced his left leg during a practice run at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on May 18.

“I was very fortunate. A half inch to the left with that suspension piece and I wouldn’t have made it,” said the 28-year-old during a recent visit to TSN. “A different safety crew and I wouldn’t have made it. If the hospital was two miles further away from the race track I probably wouldn’t have made it.

“There were so many things that had to align for me to get through it that I just kind of have to believe that there’s a reason for that.”

Almost four months have passed since that near-fatal crash. Hinchcliffe hasn’t returned to the track yet, but he’s getting closer by the day. He hopes to be practicing in a car for the 2016 IndyCar Series later this month or early October.

“Recovery has gone really well. If I were to put a number to it, I would say I’m probably 97 per cent of the way there,” explained Hinchcliffe. “The big thing for me is to get my fitness level to where it needs to be. In order to drive IndyCar competitively you got to be at a certain level. Obviously you lose a lot of that sitting around on the couch for three months.”

Hinchcliffe says he couldn’t do much for a while after the crash except lounge on his bed and watch daytime TV as he went through all the mail, Tweets and gifts from fans generously showing their support.

When he was finally ready for some exercise, it was a shock to the system.

“I remember when I finally got cleared to start riding my bike again. I was so excited, got all my gear on, got the tires pumped up and got ready to go,” said the man known as the Mayor of Hinchtown. “When I went to swing my leg over it to get on it, I nearly fell over. The stretching and working on flexibility was probably the most painful part of the rehab.”

Now Hinchcliffe is back to training three hours a day as he attempts to get ready for next year’s series which starts in March with the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.

The native of Oakville, Ont., made his IndyCar debut in 2011. The 2015 season was his first racing with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports after prior stints with Newman/Haas Racing (2011) and Andretti Autosport (2012-2014). Hinchcliffe has four career victories under his belt, most recently winning the 2015 Indy Grand Prix of Louisiana in April, a month before the crash.

Hinchcliffe says he has no fears or reservations about getting back into the car and racing around a slick track at blinding speeds because he has no memory of the horrifying scene.

The charismatic Canadian says the first memory he has was waking up in the Intensive Care Unit at the hospital in front of family and friends with no idea why he was there. Hinchcliffe even had to communicate with a pen and paper for the first little bit. Despite the shocking circumstances, Hinchcliffe said he was pretty calm when he was told what happened.

“I think some people probably would have been a little more agitated, animated or worried. I kind of just went with it,” he said.

Since Hinchcliffe could recall so little from that day, he was determined to figure out how it all went down and did a little detective work to learn more.

“I was really fascinated with it. I was really interested to learn what happened because I didn’t remember it. I watched the video, I’ve seen the data and I’ve talked to the doctors, the medical safety workers at the track,” explained Hinchcliffe. “I tried to recreate the whole day as best I could because I had no memories of my own of it. But, I think, because of that I think I have no reservations whatsoever about getting into a car. It’s the only thing I’m focused on.”

As for friends, family or his girlfriend, Kirsten Dee, trying to talk to James out of the sport, well that was a bridge he never had to cross.

“They’re smart enough to know that would have been a really short conversation,” he said with a chuckle.

Even after a near-death experience, Hinchcliffe knows that these types of freak accidents, however uncontrollable, are just part of the sport.

“This is the part of the job where you almost have to become a little bit philosophical about it, said Hinchcliffe. “We all know that these things can happen and when it’s your, it’s your time.”

That statement couldn’t be closer to the truth when it comes to British IndyCar driver Justin Wilson,  the 37-year-old father and husband who tragically died last month at Pocono Raceway after a piece of debris struck him in the head during a race.

“Losing Justin was completely devastating for everybody. He was such a good guy and such a great family,” said Hinchcliffe, a friend of Wilson’s.

“One of the things that’s so frustrating about it, is there’s nobody to blame. That was the epitome of a freak accident. My deal you could try and blame the part for failing. There was nothing you could do in Justin’s deal. That’s kind of hard to accept in a way, but it’s a part of the sport. We know that going into it that these things can happen.”