Big P-car Crash in Targa NZ (they walked away though!)

[Fishcop]

Hi Guys

I recently received these photos of a couple of our Porsche Car Club members demise a fortnight ago during the Targa New Zealand event. I hope I'm not upsetting anybody concerned by posting the pictures (including driver and co-driver), but given they walked away pretty much intact from what I consider one of the most amazing crashes I've seen, I figured it's okay. Big thumbs up to Porsche and the owner's attention to safety detail when putting together this Turbo!

I haven't spoken to the guys personally but have been reliably told the car went off the road at over 60mph, was airborne for some time, before rolling over 30 times

Gotta love the NZ scenery though!











Brings it all into perspective doesn't it!

[efhughes3]

Fuel: $500
Food: $400
Hotel: $1200
Installed rollbar in my Porsche turbo prior to event.....priceless!


Man, those are two lucky suckers.

[rexav8r]

WOW !

Glad they're ok !



Looks like that rollbar was worth it's weight in GOLD, DIAMONDS, or what ever it cost !!!


I see an insurance guy somewhere in a pub nursing his pain...

[Joeaksa]

A little bondo and some rubbing compount and it will be on Ebay for sale as "barely used on weekends"...

Those guys were lucky. Hope they played the lotto that night...

JoeA

[2.7RACER]

I spent five weeks in Christchurch in 1980 on business. Just a gorgeous place to live. The air is the cleanest and best in the world.

[Craig 930 RS]

Roll cages rule....

[Waz356]

Unfortunately this wasn't the only P car written off in Targa NZ. A couple of Brits in what was a very nice 356 managed to do this. Again both were very lucky to (almost) walk away with minor injuries.

[Waz356]

Oh, and for the record, it wasn't a convertible!

[Shuie]

30 times . Is this right? 30 or 3? 30 times has to be a record

[obrut]

nice timing john - i'm shipping my car to classic adelaide on the weekend...

[Adam]

John - Jim Richards was telling me about that accident when I met him at Calder Park on Monday! He said that the driver claimed the car rolled about 30 times, but a lot of folks were talking that back to a dozen times or so going down the clifface. It was just over 300ft down!

The driver made it out of the wreckage with some minor broken bones (collarbone & arm from memory?) and some missing teeth. He was on the same flight back to Melbourne as Jim and told him that while Targa NZ was his first major competitive event, it was also his last.

[Waz356]

Targa NZ was his first major competitive event

First major event and in a 996? A little out of his depth maybe? I don't know the guy or his driving history but I would have thought a more gentle learning curve. . . . .

[Shuie]

Anyone here ever seen Richard Petty's career ending crash? That was only 7 rolls and it went 300ft minimum. Granted it was at ~200mph, but how could any street car roll even 5 times and still be that intact?

[KevinP73]

Never having experienced a crash like this I wonder do you even have time to realize what a predicament your in? I can only imagine the terror of knowing your going over the edge of a very deep ravine( do you have time to wonder if anyone knows where your off) and then the total elation once you realize your still alive. I'm sure from the drivers perspective it must have felt like at least 30 revs.

[LakeCleElum]

Incredible........Thax for the Pic's John......Good talking to you last week when I was in Queensland......I'm back home now.....You guys live in a great country; super people also....

[Fishcop]

Some reporting on the incident...

Duo cheat 270m death plunge
> 01.11.2005
>
> By RAE WILSON LIKE an impending rollercoaster ride with the descent
> just beyond view, Scott Juniper and Dan Bowden's hearts were in their
> throats as their rally car slid toward a 270-metre ravine on New
> Zealand farmland.
> But this was no thrill ride.
>
> When the ground disappeared beneath the 2003 Twin Turbo Porsche and
> only sky stretched ahead - neither knew which track gravity would take
them.
>
> Scott went silent, Dan started screaming expletives. The silver
> Porsche flipped about 30 times before landing in an inaccessible
> ravine, 8km from the finish line of a Targa New Zealand racing stage.
>
>
>
> Excerpt from Sunshine News
>
> "We came up to the corner and it was listed as an extremely dangerous
> caution. Scott had slowed down but the brakes didn't work and we went
> right off the edge," Dan said.
> "We were airborne for about 50 metres but we couldn't see all the way
> to the bottom then.
>
> "We could only see 170m down but there was another ledge and another
> 100m.
>
> "The g-forces involved and the rolling was unbelievable - the safety
> system in the car was the only reason we lived.
>
> "At the start I didn't think we were going to die but the roll cage
> started beating down on our heads - then every roll we landed on the
> roof was absolutely terrifying.
>
> "We couldn't even see where we were when we got out of the car and we
> could not believe we'd survived." The prominent Sunshine Coast
> businessmen returned late yesterday with Dan sporting "one of the best

> black eyes I've ever seen" and Scott with chipped teeth, harness and
> helmet marks, and an "enormous" headache after being knocked
> unconscious.
>
> Maintaining their sense of humour but not willing to test their luck
> further, they are vowing not to bet on the Melbourne Cup while
> celebrating their return at Corbould Park today.
>
> Scott, the 33-year-old director of his own development company and son

> of well-known developer Graeme Juniper, spent thousands of dollars
> fitting the car with top safety measures.
>
> The car had the strongest roll cage available, seats that enveloped
> their heads, and strong harnesses and helmets. While Dan plans to
> return to racing for the Noosa Hillclimb next weekend, Scott said he
> would wait another month before deciding whether to get behind the
> wheel of a rally car again.
>
> "I was able to see down when we slid over the edge and I thought we
> were dead, I didn't think we would walk away," Scott said.
>
> "I had a co-driver with me; you just start to realise the gravity of
> how responsible you actually are for someone's life.
>
> "I remember quite a few of the tumbles but then there was a long space

> of rolling in the air and I just remember a really hard impact - then
> I don't remember anything until the bottom."
>
> Scott and Dan had finished fifth in the Australian Targa earlier in
> the year; brother Shaun Juniper went on to finish 14th outright and
> first in his class in the NZ Targa. Dan said the pair would have
> finished in the top three if they had not crashed.
>
> Dan, the 32-year-old managing director of a car care product company
> called Bowden's Own, said the biggest challenge was trying to walk
> back up the 270m hill to let people know they were there.
>
> ""It was that steep we couldn't work out how to get up," he said.
>
> "But it could have been a whole other story if we had both broken
> bones because no-one would have known we were there.
>
> "Someone's watching over us, we're destined for greater things."
>

I don't think 30 rolls is out of the question when you consider it is a steep 280m (400ft??) drop...

[LakeCleElum]

280M = 918 feet........

[Adam]

900+ feet!?

[camgrinder]

Never having experienced a crash like this I wonder do you even have time to realize what a predicament your in?

When your in an accident, and you think your about to die, time slows way way down. When I was 18 I was riding as a passenger in a car that hit a telephone pole at 90 mph. The crash was so bad it ripped the front subframe and engine out of the car. ( it was a 68 Camaro).
I can still replay the crash back in my mind like it was yesterday and it was 25 years ago.
I can remember the CHP asking me "Where are all the dead bodies?".

[Doug&Julie]

30 times?!?!? I would have had a heart attack on the way down! That's waaaay too long to be in your car thinking "I'm going to die"!!!