There was no way Danny Rowe was going to give up without a fight.

Rowe, a frontrunning Pro Modified driver, crashed his new Corvette during the Q-2 session of the AAA NHRA Midwest Nationals at Gateway Motorsports Park outside of St. Louis. Hours later, Rowe and his crew led by noted Top Alcohol specialist Jimmy Rector, deemed the two-race old Corvette unfit to continue in competition.

A call was made back to relatives, and various friends of the team resulted in them breaking in the shop and snagging the team's back-up Camaro. The Camaro was loaded into a spare hauler and after driving all night, arrived in St. Louis early Saturday morning.

"We have good people around us and we're very lucky to have them," said Rowe. "The car left last night about 9 PM, and they drove all night to get it here so after 7.5 hours, they got it here this morning.  The guys unloaded it and put it all back together.  They basically got everything out of the Corvette after last night's incident and we're back in the saddle.  We're back in black today."

Rowe impacted the wall from the side causing more than just cosmetic damage.

"I socked the wall pretty good and we're a little bit worried about the chassis," said Rowe. "The chassis got damaged so it wasn't just superficial body work.  We've just got to send it back to Tim McAmis, and that's a great car. I'm going to miss it.  We just need to get it straightened out and ready for Las Vegas."

Rowe emerged from the violent impact with no significant injury, but admitted later he was able to feel who violent the incident was.

"I was shocked.  I thought I just smacked it but I'll tell you, last night after I got kind of calmed down with the adrenaline, I started feeling parts of soreness that I didn't think I should have," Rowe admitted.  "Today I'm feeling better, definitely a shock to the system but I'm alright and the car's okay so we'll be fine."

Hours after the incident Rowe is still at a loss for explaining what caused him to lose control of the car.

"I keep watching the video over and over again, and there's lots of times I'm willing to take responsibility of being a dumba** when that has happened and this might be one of those cases.  I felt really good when I went out there, got the wheels up in the air and it felt strong but made a little bit move to the left and I made a move to the right when it was landing.  It just kind of sashayed and whipped me over there.  

"It's really funny because it caught the back end of the car, not the front end when it hit it so it was either washing out or trying to drag me around and there was nothing I could do to bring it back."

Because Rowe was forced to withdraw his Corvette from competition, he re-entered with the Camaro, and will have to requalify all over again with only one session.