Why race cars have cages

[Mothy]

This accident happened on Friday at Mt Panorama in Bathurst Australia.


A sickening crash - the drivers are on the right side of the car down under, so the black car hits the red one on the drivers side! Yet both drivers survived and the black car was repaired and actually started the main race on Sunday morning - 36 hrs later.

The strength of race cars these days in incredible.

Tim

[Z-man]

There was no reason for the black car to collect the red car. Can't tell from the video, but either a flagger wasn't doing his job, or the driver of the black car wasn't paying attention.

There was a car stalled out right on the racing line -- should have been at least a yellow flag waving.

Glad to hear the drivers were ok though...

-Z-man.

[billybek]

Holy impacts!
That was a hard hit especially so long after the initial incident...
I wonder if the damaged car driver watched the black car come into his door??

[stomachmonkey]

Love the Aussie V8 Supercar series.

Those guys are hardcore, blows away Nascar.

Used to be able to get it on the tube couple of years ago but unfortunately no longer.

[cstreit]

THere was a lot of discussion about this. THe 2nd driver said that the yellow flag is in a position where it was too late to do anything about it. True or not I cannot speculate.

[livi]

Imagine the split second emotion of the driver in the red car when he realizes the inevitable. Ghastly.

[Z-man]

Originally Posted by livi

Imagine the split second emotion of the driver in the red car when he realizes the inevitable. Ghastly.

Off-topic, but.....


What's the last thing that goes through a bug's mind when it hits a windshield?































His butt.


Sorry,
-Z

[dewolf]

6 or 8 inches more to the right and I doubt red car's driver would have survived.

[John Rogers]

Two weekends ago at willow Springs in the practice race we had a 2.5L Datsun sedan spin in turn 9 and was hit by a 911 that was several car lengths behind him. Neither car went off the track so there was no dust cloud which normally alerts the next drivers in line that sonething was happening. The wreck happened after I went past the turn 8 flag stand so the caution flag was not waving yet but it was waving at turn 9 and once I saw it and then picked up on the Datsun that was sitting sideways in the middle of turn 9, I really had to stand on the brakes to get stopped in time and was nearly hit from behind by 4 other cars who were racing hard and were a tad bit slow to react. A couple of those cars went into the dirt and then we all stopped so the wreckers could get the mess cleaned up. The point is that there is nearly no time to react when something happens and we were just a bunch of old guys driving old cars, not pros with a lot of sponser $$$$$$ on the line to finish first!

[Mothy]

Originally Posted by Z-man

There was no reason for the black car to collect the red car. Can't tell from the video, but either a flagger wasn't doing his job, or the driver of the black car wasn't paying attention.

There was a car stalled out right on the racing line -- should have been at least a yellow flag waving.

Glad to hear the drivers were ok though...

-Z-man.

I was there for the weekend and that point in the track is a blind rise bend where they are full on the gas. There was a yellow flag waving and the black car had backed off but he would not have seen where the obstruction was on the track till he was over the rise and too close to avoid.

[Z-man]

Originally Posted by Mothy

I was there for the weekend and that point in the track is a blind rise bend where they are full on the gas. There was a yellow flag waving and the black car had backed off but he would not have seen where the obstruction was on the track till he was over the rise and too close to avoid.

Gotcha -- thanks for clarifying. In that case, I retract my original comments.

Sometimes in races, crashes are unavoidable...
-Z

[nostatic]

we had an incident last year at Infineon. First practice session, end of the session and checkered was thrown, but cars were still on track at speed. Safety truck goes onto the hot track to remove some debris, parking *on the racing line* at the base of a blind rise out of the esses. The closest flag station showed a standing yellow (not waving) and no white flag. Car at speed comes over the rise, sees the truck parked on track, stomps on the brakes but no way to stop. Plows into the back of the 10K pound emergency truck. Had to be cut out of his cage and airlifted to the hospital. Some head trauma (wasn't wearing his Hans) but otherwise ok. I was about the 3rd car past the scene, and thankfully I had slowed because I was cooling down after checkered otherwise I might have hit it. Why the flag station wasn't waving a yellow I'll never know...and why they send a safety vehicle out onto a hot track and park on the racing line...well, let's just say mistakes were made.