Concussion for USAC racer Billy Aton

Billy Aton, a Benicia race car driver with two track championships to his credit, had planned to race this season in the United States Auto Club West Coast non-wing division.

He had a new car, trailer and tow vehicle ready for this year’s competition and was leading the first heat of the USAC Western Classic Sprint Car season opener at Calistoga Speedway in April when a tire failed and he began flipping at 120 mph.

Aton landed upside down, but before he could emerge from his car, Bradley Terrell’s car slammed into the No. 26. The impact sent Aton’s car tumbling again.

When the dust settled on the dirt track, Terrell had broken his hip, arm and a leg and was taken to a nearby hospital.

Aton climbed out of his car a little slower than usual, his father, Bill, said. By that time, Billy’s mother, Amy, had put down her recording camera.

Their son appeared all right, but he had a concussion, and it was “worse than we thought,” Bill said. Paramedics checked the driver and soon realized he was speaking nonsense. He, too, took a trip to the hospital, though he reported for work at the Lodge at Sonoma, a Marriott resort, the next day.

Aton was wearing full safety gear, the same type of uniform worn by NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers, his father said. That’s what saved his life.

Fire-resistant socks and shoes, shirt and gloves, along with the full-length fire suit would have protected Aton had any spark ignited his fuel.

Most importantly, he was wearing a protective full-face helmet. Cradling his neck was a HANS device, an acronym for “head and neck safety.”

“When you race and it’s your child, you put every bit of safety equipment on them,” Bill said. “You wear it or you don’t race. If he hadn’t had the HANS device on …” He let his voice fade.

Aton, 24, an engineer and California Maritime Academy graduate, has recovered from the crash. But his brand new car was demolished — a challenge to a race team that primarily is made up of the driver, his parents and a friend.

The team doesn’t have any marketer, the way some of Aton’s competitors do. Racing can cost $2,000 or more a night, Bill said. To qualify for the Vermeil Classic at Calistoga, fuel and tires for the two nights of racing cost $2,500, and that doesn’t count the cost of getting to and from the track or the stay.

“We can’t pull out $25,000 or $30,000 for a race car,” Bill said.

Aton has some sponsors, especially Transport Products Unlimited, “who has helped us a lot,” Bill said.

Bill said other sponsors that have helped his son’s team are Red Line Oil, a Benicia company; a Petaluma company, Larsen Race Products; and Triple X Chassis of Washington.

But a lot of the money that has funded Aton’s racing career has come from his family. Amy works for the federal government and currently is in Washington, D.C., and Bill is a painting contractor.

Aton, who has lived in Benicia since he was in Benicia Middle School, started racing as a preschooler, first on bikes. He was joined by his mother to become the first mother-son bike race team, and they made it to a national top-10 rank.

Bill’s work took him past Delta Speedway in Stockton, where “I saw kids racing.” An acquaintance’s child was among them, and “The next thing you know, we’re buying an outlaw car,” he said. That’s when Aton was 8.

When he was 12, he was racing 500-cc outlaws and was entering 600-cc midgets, cars powered with motorcycle engines.

At 17, Aton was in a sprint car.

He scored two championships in one year when he was 18, a track championship at Watsonville and another in Antioch. he was in the top three in 23 of 25 races.

He even raced against Elk Grove native Kyle Larson, who has started his rookie year in Sprint Cup, NASCAR’s premier level.

There’s more to racing than the need for speed or acquiring trophies, Bill said. Competitors and their families become friends and mutual supporters.

In fact, he said, it’s as if they become a large extended family, forged over barbecue grills at race day cookouts and sealed by shared stories of a clever pass or a dodged calamity.

For Aton, a Benicia High School graduate, after his early success on the track the next step wasn’t a move up the ranks. It was enrollment at Cal Maritime in Vallejo, where he majored in engineering.

“College got in the way,” Bill said, “so he couldn’t race full time.” Aton’s parents encouraged him to further his education, reminding him it was a way he could help pay to stay in a race car, either full time or as a sportsman.

This spring was going to be Aton’s first full-time season in a while, so he and his family bought all new gear for the first race at Calistoga. Things were going well until that tire went flat and Aton’s car started spinning.

“This has set our whole year back,” his father said.

Now Aton, his father and his team are working on another car the driver will race perhaps 10 times this season.

And they’re looking to add to their list of sponsors, companies willing to pay to use his race car and hauling trailer like a traveling billboard. He’s willing to let someone sponsor his car for a single night or extend the name appearance for the balance of the season.

Bill Aton said potential sponsors may call or text his son at 707-396-2252.

“He’s won a lot of races,” he said of his son. “He would like to do this full time.”