An L.A. drive-through gym

What's the last thing you'd expect to encounter early on a Sunday morning while exercising at the gym? How about a car crashing through the front window, knocking you off your treadmill and into broken glass?

That's what happened last weekend to Kevin McClay, a member of Body Builders Gym, a respected neighborhood gym in Silver Lake on Hyperion Avenue. McClay was working out in the cardio room when he spied the car.

"I was on the front row of machines," said the 46-year-old elementary school assistant principal from L.A. "I saw this guy come around the curve heading toward Rowena [Avenue] on Hyperion. I could see he overshot the curve, and he skidded and shot toward the gym. A car was parked in front and I thought he'd total the car, but he missed it and went through the glass," plowing down an iron gate in the process.

McClay said everything went slo-mo: "It was like I was watching a movie. I really didn't think this was happening."

He and another gym member were knocked off their treadmills. McClay suffered cuts on his knees and a bruised back and was taken to the hospital by ambulance, treated and released (the other member sustained injuries but wasn't taken to the hospital). The driver was taken to the hospital, McClay said, but his condition was not known. A staff member who was standing on the sidewalk in front of the gym when the crash happened jumped out of the way in the nick of time.

McClay's knees are beginning to heal, but he said he's "not in a rush to get back to the gym, to be honest."

Erik Flowers, the gym's co-owner and a personal trainer, wasn't there when the crash happened, but wasn't surprised when he heard about it. Six months ago a car hit three parked cars in front of the gym, and two months ago a car crashed through a bike rack and parking meter, stopping two feet from the gym's door.

"It looks like a bomb went off" is how Flowers described the inside of the gym, post-crash. Cardio equipment that wasn't smashed has been moved to another room.

He knows things could have been much worse, and said members have been understanding about the inconvenience.

Flowers added that the crash impressed one of his clients, a producer of big-budget commercials: "He came up to me and said, 'Do you know how much it would take for me to replicate this?' "

-Jeannine Stein

Photo: Jon Delaney

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