After hitting a track wall, Linklater said he must have gone unconscious but the car kept going, scraping the side wall for several seconds before veering off track and driving front-on into the opposite wall.
“When I look back on it, I’ve done a million laps around that speedway and never, ever crashed like that before,” Linklater said.
“My wife said that after the first hit into the wall, she didn’t watch the bigger hit because she could see what was going to happen.”
Gerry Linklater before his career-ending crash in April 2025. Photo / Tyler Hill Photography
Following the incident, he was taken to Whanganui Hospital, then flown to Wellington Hospital and put into an induced coma for two weeks.
He said it took a while to fully emerge from the coma and his memories started again in August – four months after the accident.
“One thing I learned was that it’s not at all like on TV, when they push a button and the person wakes up – it’s f***ing not like that at all,” he said.
Linklater suffered a broken spine in two places, a broken sternum, rib and arm, and multiple brain bleeds.
He said it took a while before he was told anything about the crash and remembered asking who crashed into him, to which his wife, Sarah Linklater, said “no one”.
“The only reason I wanted to know was so I could reach out to them and tell them ‘no hard feelings’,” he said.
Recovery had been a process and the brain injury had been the biggest challenge, he said.
“A lot of the times, when I wake up, I’m already tired and it doesn’t matter how long you sleep, sometimes you wake up and just feel tired,” he said.
“It’s not because I’m not interested in what’s happened or anything; your body just can’t fight the fatigue.”
He said fatigue, short-term memory loss and moving slower were the biggest effects of the injury.
Suffering a brain injury was like living in two worlds; one where you show up, smile and function, and the other where you recover in silence for hours, Linklater said.
He said other people only saw the first world and rarely the latter.
Linklater praised ACC, which modified his home to make it more usable and had approved further modifications.
Gerry Linklater with the suit that was cut off him after the crash. A friend sewed it back up for him to frame. Photo / Fin Ocheduszko Brown
Since the crash, Linklater has been busy; he got married, attended the NRL Magic Round in Brisbane, set up a “man cave” full of stockcar memorabilia and completed the 3 Bridges Marathon 5km walk.
He said completing the walk with friends and family, seven months after the accident, was awesome.
“It was funny because the night before I didn’t have very good sleep … but to me, my thoughts were ‘you set your mind to something so do it’,” he said.
Linklater’s goal is to complete the event’s quarter marathon this year.
He thanked people for their support throughout his recovery.
“When I got out of the coma and went on Facebook, it was humbling,” he said.
Nearly $16,000 was donated to the Linklater family through a Givealittle page.
He said the Wanganui Warriors had been awesome to him, especially manager Rangi Dykstra.
He praised his wife, who resigned from her job to care for him.
“There’s nothing more that she could do – she’s amazing,” he said.
Linklater looked back on his career as a stockcar driver with pride.
“I still love it, I love the sport and I have no bad memories at all,” he said.
He was proud of the NZ Stockcar Championship title he won in 2007, his 2NZ in 2008 and the many regional events he performed well in over the years.
Linklater had to medically retire from his job as area engineer for Horizons Regional Council and is unsure what the future holds.
He wants to stay involved with speedway and stockcar racing and “just enjoy life”.
Fin Ocheduszko Brown is a multimedia journalist based in Whanganui.