Column By: MIKE TRAVERSE / RPW – PINE BUSH, NY – On July 16, 2022, Joey Bruning was in a heat race crash at Orange County that left him with injuries that required a couple of days in the hospital and ended his season.
While in the early stages of recovery, Joey thought about whether or not he was going to continue in racing
But his injuries have healed and Joey and team are returning to racing. He will be racing weekly in the OCFS Sportsman division and he has his eyes on the division’s biggest prize.
“For 2023, we are planning to run Orange County for the season-long Sportsman championship. We’ve been close before. The last time we ran for points, we finished 3rd. Looking for a good season and making a championship run.”
For years, Joey has raced with a partnership with his uncle, George Johnson. This will be their final season together and Joey wants to make it a good one.
“This will be my last season driving for my uncle, George Johnson. At the end of the year, he’s retiring from racing. So we are all putting all of our eggs in one basket and that’s our goal, to go for the championship. We will hopefully give him a good sendoff.”
Even with George’s retirement, Joey does plan on continuing in racing after 2023.
“I’m going to keep racing. I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon. The last year or two, since we’ve got with Bicknell, we really started learning and figuring out this slick track. I’m right now at the age where I’m in race car driver prime. I can’t stop now. I’ll have to figure out how to get the car or potentially drive someone’s stuff. We’ll figure that out at the end of the year.”
In the weeks before the crash, Joey felt the team coming on strong after the new surface was put down in June, 2022.
“The 2 weeks leading up to the crash, just after the new surface was put down. We went to the Tuesday practice session on the new surface. We were really starting to figure something out. We left there, made a couple of other changes that just made sense. I had Bicknell really helping me out with some things. Anthony Perrego was helping me out with a lot of things. When we went back the next week, we were the fastest car in warmups, heat race and feature. Started 16th in the feature, drove up to the lead by lap 12. Ended up losing the race in a lapped traffic deal and finished 2nd. We were incredibly happy with how the race car was right before the crash the following week. We were fast in warmups that night also.”
But later that event was when his season took a bad turn.
“We were fast in the heat race. We made a move on the outside, something that will work 49 times out of 50. I was full throttle in turn 1 on the top side. I remember two cars bouncing together and one of them moved up the groove where I was committed. My left front hit his right rear. Once we made contact, it picked the car straight up and slammed it down on the right front. The force of slamming down fractured my L1 vertebrae. We hit the wall then flipped over.”
It turned into one of those nightmare scenarios in racing for Joey as he waited for assistance.
“I just had no strength from the waist down. I’m upside down, I’m trying to get out and I couldn’t. I had the wind knocked out of me. The combination of the breathing, upside down and fuel pouring in is an experience I’d like to forget.”
After being transported to Garnet Medical Center, tests revealed Joey’s injuries.
“The x-rays confirmed the L1 fracture. I spent two nights in the hospital. I had a couple weeks of light duty rehab. But no surgery.”
It was the two nights in the hospital when Joey was thinking that he might be done with racing.
“I was thinking, my wife Melanie is home with 3 boys under 3 years old (Maddox, Cameron and Connor) and I was in the hospital was a sick feeling. I was having all kinds of thoughts about not racing again.”
While his injuries were thankfully not debilitating, it was certainly a lot of pain that Joey had to deal with.
“From the middle of my back down, painful is the only way to describe it. When I crawled out of the race car and got to my feet, I could feel the movement in my spine. I immediately sat down. In the ambulance, I was thinking that maybe I just tweaked it or pulled a muscle.
The worst pain seemed to be the back muscles kind of got over extended. The muscle pain lasted for weeks. I woke up at night in agonizing pain from the muscles trying to return from being stretched.”
But once he started feeling better, Joey started thinking about racing again.
“Once things cooled off and I started healing up pretty good, 3 or 4 weeks later and still in a back brace, I went to the shop to look at the car and started taking the car apart to see what we needed.”
Unknown to a lot of people, Joey and the team thought about getting ready for Eastern States Weekend, but decided it was best to wait until 2023 for the comeback.
“We got a lot of help from our sponsors. It was a group effort and we were looking to do Eastern States. While the team was ready, I was mentally 50-50. I was getting the car ready and I had one more appointment with a spine specialist. They said that the healing looked pretty good, but they couldn’t advise me to get back into the seat that soon. On their advice, I decided not to do it and take the off season to get strong.”
Although the crashed car had damage, it was still in good enough shape to be repaired and that’s the car Joey will be racing with in 2023.
“It’s a 2021 Bicknell. We built it brand new. This car is on it’s 3rd front clip. We get a Bicknell clip from Behrent’s and we bring it over to Jerry Higbie at Hig Fab. They take the old one off and put the new one on. And we are usually fast right away with a win or top 3. Seems like a fresh clip is a wake up call for the car.”
And there will be other improvements on the 2023 version.
“We’re picking up a new crate engine this week. We have a bunch of little things to get done this week, we’re fully planning on putting the car in the motorsports show along with my son’s first Go Kart. We’ll have matching cars, that will be a nice display.”
And a very important safety item will be in the #24 this year.
“One of the questions I had about getting back into the car is making sure that I have the best safety possible. We bought a brand new Butler Built Containment Seat. I also got a seat mold kit from Butler. It’s a mold that will give me maximum containment. I’ve definitely done things this season to minimize the chances of getting hurt. ”
Sometimes when a racer gets hurt in a crash, the racer will get pressure from family members to give up the sport. But for Joey, it was the complete opposite.
“As I was thinking about coming back, it was something my wife, Melanie, said. She said that if I had the strength and I wanted to do it, that I should do it. When that door started to open, I kicked it straight open. The time off has really fueled me to want to come back, better than ever.”
Joey has had much success in the different forms of racing that he has competed in since he began racing Karts at Oakland Valley Raceway Park in 2002. In 2004, he scored 18 wins and 2 championships. 2006 saw him as the WKA Rookie of the Year.
In 2009, he was the Albany Saratoga North East National Champion. 2010 saw him as the WKA Pole Winner. Joey is a 3 time Novemberfest Champion 2007, 2007 and 2012. All told, he has collected 64 Kart feature wins, 46 on dirt and 18 on Pavement and in 2016, he was the Atlantic City Indoor Race Pole Winner.
In the stock cars, Joey is a 15 time feature winner with 9 at OCFS and 6 at Accord. He was Accord’s Rookie of the Year in 2014 and at OCFS in 2015. And he has collected wins on the big stage with victories in the 2016 Accord Gobbler, 2017 STSS Hard Clay Open at OCFS and the 2021 Battle of the Bullring at Accord.
“We had some pretty good success early on in the Sportsman. I had 4 wins my rookie season, 3 at Accord and 1 at Middletown. The Brain Smith #44 ride was kind of open and worked out a deal with my Uncle George and Brian. He had a win and I remember 2 or 3 that we lost where I was leading and had something go wrong like a bad restart. Those I can remember more than the win. I wish that I knew then what I know now. I might have had a different career trajectory.”
One of the things Joey likes best about dirt racing is the technology that’s involved.
“The thing I love most about motorsports and dirt racing is really the technology. You have to be on top of the shocks and the chassis. It’s really taken a huge leap in the last few years. It’s fun and challenging to stay up on it. You change things and you test and when it actually works when you’re out there racing and it’s fast and you’re winning, that’s what it’s all about.”
Sponsors on the #24 for 2023 are Interstate Batteries (Jeff Desharnais), Johnson’s Auto & Truck Center, R.Wood and Sons General Contracting, Superior Surfacing Systems, Tony Monaco Landscaping, Wicked Truck Worx, Elite Electric, Bicknell Racing Chassis and Donath Motor Worx.
Crew members are George Johnson, JB Roe, Joby Roe and Wyatt Clark.
Joey sends out special thanks to his uncle, George Johnson, and to his cousin, George, for all their help over the years.
As Joey sums up his thoughts on 2023, you can sense the competitiveness as he speaks.
“I’m really happy with our Bicknell and our program now. I expect to be really competitive out of the gate this year.”
Joey Bruning is a most personable and well spoken driver who is coming back from a significant injury.
Wishing good luck and safe racing to Joey in 2023!!