"It gave everyone a fright."
Spectacular crashes are part and parcel of sprint car racing and most of the time they aren't as bad as they look but McDonald insists a number of factors contributed to make his accident particularly nasty.
Had he not been using the best safety gear around the incident would have been a fatality.
"It was a freak accident – it hit in the worst possible place you could hit and the only thing that saved my life was the quality of my safety gear and the quality of the seat I use because without that I wouldn't be talking to you now," he said.
Thankfully other than some severe bumps and bruises McDonald's injuries were limited to a bad concussion. He has improved a lot in the past couple of weeks and now hopes to be able to make the start line of the Sprint Car National Champs on January 20.
"It has been three and a half weeks since the accident and I am now a week and a half from the champs. I am feeling a lot better – I have got to pass one more concussion test. Every second day I am in at the physio and osteo rehabbing my shoulder and my back.
"I am racing the clock now to get all my sign offs.
"We are also building a brand new car because nothing from the old one survived – even the motor."
