Did Indy Crash Slow Cogan? He’ll Find Out in Milwaukee

Forget that Kevin Cogan’s $320,000 car broke apart like shattering glass five days ago. Forget that Cogan says he came about this close to going from car to coffin. Forget that he still doesn’t know what went wrong.

Forget all that.

Cogan is trying to forget it.

Just a week removed from the Indianapolis 500 and the most violent wreck of his driving career, Cogan, 33, of Palos Verdes Estates, will resume racing Sunday in the Milwaukee 200, despite deep and painful bruises on his arms and feet, and cuts on his shoulders and neck.

Such is life in the fastest lane.

“Once you fall off a bike, you have to get back on,” Cogan said.

Yes, Kevin, but you didn’t fall off a bike. You crashed into three walls at better than 200 m.p.h. and were engulfed by fiberglass, metal, rubber, wires, sparks and methanol. Doesn’t that type of experience tend to alter aggressive driving personalities?

“We’ll see,” Cogan said. “I hope not, but I might be cautious for the first 10 laps or so, then I’ll push the car to the limit.”

Of course, the limit on Milwaukee’s mile track is nowhere near the limit on the 2 1/2-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but still . . .

Cogan’s 1988 March-Cosworth was destroyed in Indianapolis when, on the second lap, the car malfunctioned. It nicked the outer wall at Turn 4, dipped inside and crashed into the inside pit wall, where it broke in half, then bounced across pit road and into the new guard rail in front of the outside pit wall, all the while becoming expensive debris.

The main component, the tub--with Cogan in it--slid down pit road and the rest of the car’s mangled pieces flew elsewhere, the severed engine sliding into Dominic Dobson’s pit.

“I still have a headache,” Cogan said.

Cogan will be using a similar car Sunday, which he said is good because he likes the handling qualities of the car, but bad because it may resurrect memories he is trying to bury.

“The car was so destroyed that we have no idea what happened,” Cogan said. “I’d like to know because (the accident) could have very easily been fatal.

“Usually when you say you’ve destroyed a race car, it is just half destroyed. But my mechanic (Mark Bridges), who has been around for 20 years, says he’s never seen anything like it. Everything is broken.”

Danny Sullivan passed Cogan just before the accident and the next day told Cogan that he saw puffs of smoke or dust coming from the back of Cogan’s car. Smoke or dust from the rear could have meant a broken brake disc, an oil leak from a velocity joint or dusty air seeping out of one of the tires.

Cogan said that his car handled “fantastically” the entire month preceding the race, but that he could sense that something was wrong during Sunday’s first lap, when the car’s rear end jumped out awkwardly in the turns. Cogan even considered stopping to get it checked, but quickly rejected the thought.

“If you go in on the first lap, you are basically giving up the race,” he said. “It’s a tough decision. Safety probably should be your first concern, but it’s hard to tell a race driver that during a race.”

At some point during the wild ride, Cogan was drenched with what he thought was fuel.

“I had no fear until I hit the pit wall and felt liquid all over,” he said. “I realized I was trapped in the car. I panicked. I thought I was about to go up in a ball of flames.”

He didn’t, though, and the suspect liquid turned out to be water from his shattered water bottle.

Cars traveling at about 200 m.p.h. seem to almost want to spin going into a corner, Cogan said, but he lost control of his car coming out of one, heading into a straightaway. It is an awkward place for a spin and something he says never happened to him before. He said he was lucky, though, that the back of the car hit first.

“Backing in is by far the safest way to crash,” Cogan said. “I’m very, very lucky. I’ve never been that close to death.”

And with that thought, Kevin Cogan stopped talking.

He had to go and prepare for Sunday’s race.