There has been an inconspicuous absence from one of drag racing’s favorite low budget teams, and it has nothing to do with funding.
Jeff “The Surfer” Diehl, and wife/Back-up girl Leeza Diehl were involved in a non-racing automobile accident in which the couple was fortunate to have walked away with their lives.
The Diehls, following the NHRA Northwest Nationals, were rear-ended by an eighteen wheeler just outside of Sacramento, Ca.
“We’re so lucky,” said Jeff Diehl. “I got a little bit of trauma watching that thing come at us. I’ve never seen a semi coming that hard. I thought for sure it would have done a lot worse.”
The Diehls were on the way to their son Trevor’s wedding when the Dodge Caravan they were driving was struck by the truck traveling at an estimated 55-miles per hour.
“Believe it or not, right when he slammed us, I stood on the gas pedal and then got back on the brakes, so it wasn’t a dead stop,” Diehl explained. “Then, when it impacted, he smooshed us all the way into the other cars.
“I’ve never seen a grill moving so fast in my rearview mirror before in my life. So then, about two hours later, we refused to go to the hospital at that time because I was in shock, basically. I had to get to my kid’s wedding. I missed his high school graduation, and I wasn’t going to miss his wedding, so we were like, ‘no, we’ve got to go.”
The Diehls are in the midst of physical therapy for the injuries they sustained.
“I kind of turned my head to tell her to put her head back, and I got the side impact, so I had a mild concussion,” Diehl explained. “The airbags in the seat went off and hit me and the same with her, so we both just had really bad trauma to our necks, back and upper backs.”
Diehl says he will recommend to anyone who will listen, the car they need to drive is a Dodge Caravan.
“It blew all the glass out of the back, and it was a pretty bad crash,” said Diehl. “Imagine like two hours later; we were in a brand new Camaro because that’s all they had at the rent-a-car place. Imagine if we would have been in that.”
Diehl has penciled out a timetable when they hope to return.
“We’re working on physical therapy, and we’ve got the trauma to the neck and everything,” Diehl explained. “We’re trying to be back, if we can, by Dallas. We just can’t do anything until we feel better.”
