During the first practice session of the regular season for the Pro Mazda Championship, JDC Motorsports driver, Michael Johnson, collided with the concrete barrier on the outside of Turn 3 at the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. Johnson had completed 16 laps on a damp, but drying racetrack before the incident. The red flag was shown to allow safety crew and medical staff to respond. Coming so late in the allotted time, the remainder of the practice session was cancelled. INDYCAR released the following statement this afternoon regarding Johnson’s condition.
The following is a medical update on Pro Mazda Championship Presented by Cooper Tires driver Michael Johnson of JDC Motorsports, who made contact with the Turn 3 wall in the opening practice session of the Allied Building Products Grand Prix of St. Petersburg this morning:
Jeffery Johnson, MD, FACS, Trauma Surgeon, of Bayfront Medical Center, stated that Michael Johnson is in ICU under observation with fractures to the hip and pelvis and is being monitored.
Additional updates will be released when available.
Michael Johnson is in his second year of competition in the Pro Mazda Championship, having spent two years previously in the USF2000 Championship. Prior to racing open-wheel cars, Michael raced supermoto in a variety of classes. In 2005, while competing at a 1/4-mile dirt track, Michael had an incident that fractured, among other bones, his T4 and T5 vertebra, leaving him paralyzed from the chest down. He races now thanks to hand control technology that he’s helped develop, and continues to be an inspiration to those suffering from mobility-limiting injuries.
We here at Formula1Blog.com are certainly hoping for a speedy recovery for Michael, and hope to see him back behind the wheel.
