In the second weekend of April Abbie Eaton got behind the wheel to race for the first time since the incident during the W series race at COTA last year. That incident left her with two fractured vertebrae and a rather extensive period of recovery. Now she’s found her way back to racing and watched the starting lights go out for the first time this year.
During the Voorjaarsraces in Zandvoort, Eaton shared her Revolution car with Jorge Calado whilst competing in the Sports Prototype Cup. The Prototype Cup cars lined up on the grid alongside the cars from the Supercar Challenge during the feature races on both Saturday and Sunday.
Abbie’s introduction to the Revolution Team was made by friend and fellow Revolution driver Richard Morris. “I was kindly introduced to Revolution Race Cars by Richard Morris from Racing Pride. He’s racing the Revolution cars and given my injury and coming back from that, I’ve been looking for opportunities to get back in the car.”
She said, “Revolution was really helpful and basically invited me down to do a test day at Donnington Park. Then they said, ‘Do you fancy coming over to race at Zandvoort?’ I said, ‘Yes of course!’ And here I am. Easy as that.”
When asked about how her back was doing after COTA, Eaton was cautiously optimistic. “It’s getting there, for sure. It’s a lot better than it was. In the last four weeks, I’ve seen some real improvement. Working out in the gym, I’m starting to lift much heavier weights – But you never know how prepared you are until you are back in a race car.” She was keen to test out her strength and fitness level, to get a sense of where she is at in her recovery.
This isn’t her first time back behind the wheel of a race car after the COTA incident, as the week previous to the Voorjaarsraces she had some test days in both an F3 car and in the Revolution. A few test days are not comparable to preparing your body for an actual race weekend, however, says Eaton. “This weekend is a little bit more race-focused in terms of pressure and intensity from start to finish.”
During the weekend, Eaton shared her car with Jorge Calado. This allowed her to swap out with Calado when needed, but she was quite pleased with how she was getting on. That doesn’t mean that it was all smooth sailing, however.
“The seat’s not entirely how I would prefer it to be. So that has created a few problems, but the actual fracture site is fine. It’s just the rest of my body. Over the last four months, my fitness level has dropped down, so I’m not yet back to where I was. Instead, I’m just playing catch-up. It’s getting better and stronger every week, the more I do stuff like this. It’s more of a work-out, so I’m just treating this weekend as a strength session basically.”
When asked if the accident plays on her mind still, she mainly voiced how pleased she was to get back to racing, but added that, “like with any injury, you’re always a little bit tentative to start off with. It’s just exposure. The more you are out in the car, the more you’ll eventually forget about it. It’s only going to get easier from here on out.”
At the time, Eaton could not provide a conclusive answer to the question if she would be returning to the W Series, saying with a somewhat cautious smile, “We’ll see… It’s up to them.” She was more optimistic about getting back in the Revolution car, suggesting that we might see her feature in the Sports Prototype Cup again later this year.
It has since been confirmed that Abbie Eaton will be returning to the W series. On the 22nd of April it was announced that she is set to join Sarah Moore in making up the Scuderia W team, meaning that she will be making her first appearance at the highly anticipated season opener in Miami on 6-8 May 2022.
📷 Daniel Bürgin
She probably will be looking forward to getting back in the car, because the results of this first race weekend were not worth writing home about, although this was to no fault of her own. On Saturday the 9th of April the call to start on slicks despite the hail at the start left the Prototype cars to slip and slide across the track, whilst on Sunday the 10th of April the car had to be retired after damage to the front wing during Jorge Calado’s drive. The Sports Prototype Cup next races at Silverstone on the 19th of June.