It was the third race of the 2002 season. Modified stock car racer Shane Golden pulled into Heartland Park Topeka’s dirt track with his usual optimism, anticipating a good night of racing. Racers know an accident can happen any time they race. They think it will never involve their car.

As fate would have it that weekend, Golden’s car became the victim of an out of control competitor, punting him up the track and into a wall. The result was a badly broken race car for Golden.

Click to take a look inside Shane Golden’s garage and see the repairs in progress.

All winter long, Golden and his crew chief, Chad Heston, invested hundreds of hours building a new race car. Now they will have to put in even more time to fix it.

The average spectator has no idea how much time and expense is involved in repairing a race car. Golden walked away from the wreck with no injuries, but, hidden behind the bent sheet metal and crumpled right front, were more than 60 hours of repairs.

Golden and his wife own a new race shop a few miles north of Perry. A rusty car frame sits out front. In a few days, that 1983 Ford Thunderbird frame will be sandblasted to remove the rust and prepare the surface for painting.

Inside, Golden’s 2002 Belleville Modified is hardly recognizable. The wrecked car has been stripped of all its bent and broken parts. All that remains of the front half of the car is the twisted 1-inch tubing. On the floor sits the smashed frame of another Ford Thunderbird. It’s headed for the junkyard.

Over the next 30 days, Golden’s nights and evenings will be dedicated to the removal of the tubing on the right side of the car, bending and welding new tubing, bending new sheet metal, hanging new suspension pieces and various other parts and finally repainting the car.

Golden has the time-saving and money-saving advantage of owning his own jig for building and repairing his car. He also has a tube bender and sheet metal break, allowing all of the repair work to be completed in his own race shop.

On the weekend of May 18-19, Golden plans to participate in a special sponsor night race. As his current car sits in pieces, he has brought out his car from last year.

The 2001 car now is now an unwilling backup too early in the season. With years of experience to aid him and his crew chief, and with friends lending a hand, last year’s car will soon be retired again. Golden’s repaired race car will once again be turning laps. Very few spectators will know the time, energy and money it took to bring it back from the dead.

Oh well, that’s racin’.