A FRACTURED spine is something many may struggle to return to racing from, but for Luke Storer a spine injury only spurred him to go even faster as he joins his brother Daniel driving sprintcars this season.

Having sustained fractures to three vertebrae in a crash in February this year, Luke’s speedway season ended abruptly in a heat at Ballarat’s Redline Raceway.

Luke said throughout his recovery he had set his sights on juggling his speedcar commitments with a step into the world of winged sprintcars for the family team, Storer Motorsport.

“In February I had a big roll over in the speed car and fractured three vertebrae, it wasn’t too good of an experience,” he said.

“I’d had a couple of good wins that season, so it was a shame that it had to end that way.

“I took some time to recover, but over that time I just couldn’t wait to get out onto the track again.”

Having overcome the injury, Storer’s sprintcar career kicked off earlier this month at Avalon Raceway.

Going up against cars with larger engines than his in round one, Storer finished in the top 10 in both his heat and the B main race which he said was a good result.

“We went over there for the first round with no expectations,” he said.

“I’d never driven anything with a wing on it before so, it was always going to be a bit different to what I was used to.

“The first round I was going up against the 410 litre engines, when we’ve only got a 360 litre, so it was a bit down on horsepower.

“We were pretty happy with how we went, now we’re just looking to move forward with every race and bring the car back home safely each time.”

While it was Storer’s first taste of sprintcar racing, it was far from his first lap around a track having found success first in karting before moving onto speedcar racing.

“I started racing karts when I was seven years old and raced a junior sedan from around 12 to 16 years old,” he said.

“I’ve raced in every state of Australia, so racing has been pretty kind to me.

“The way these sprint cars steer and react are so different to what I’ve been used to, everything moves a fair bit faster than in speedway races.”

Luke’s older brother Daniel is in his third season of sprintcar racing this year, and while he is excited to be joined on the track by his little brother, he won’t be handing over too many tips as the pair go wheel-to-wheel.

“All I say to him is best of luck, and hopefully there's no hard feelings out on the track," Daniel laughed.

“We used to race wingless against each other back in the day, but now it's just about whoever is best on the night.

“Pretty much everything is identical in the two cars, except Luke's engine is just slightly different.

“He's picked it up really quick in the first two rounds, right now it's like he's showing me how it's done.”

The real test for Luke will be when it comes to switching between speedcars and sprintcars from week to week, but he said it was something he was looking forward to learning.

“I haven’t done the two back-to-back just yet,” he said.

“It’ll be interesting to see how that all goes, I think the first couple of laps might be interesting, but I think I’ll be alright.”