Quote:
Originally posted by turborat
Clearly, Keaton was not qualified to be driving any car "solo" on the track. The article does not speak to this issue at all. His lack of skill is what killed them and that is sad. Anybody that goes to the track (aside from real pros) to work out a handling problem on a car is not using their head. If the car is an ill handling car on the city streets, what does one expect it to do on the track in full anger. To add a degree of difficulty, he invites someone along (joy riding should be forbidden at such events). I suspect some basic DE rules were ignored here. I am generally no fan of "wrongful death" lawsuits and I do not feel the need to be protected from myself, but Rudi's wife is entitled to explore whether the "assumptions" of the signed waiver were in place on that day.
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Is anyone of us qualified to drive a car on the track? How many of us had enrolled in a driving school for high performance driving, and yet we go to DE and autocross thinking that we can drive just because we own a sportscar.
Any car could be ill handling on the street. Hell the first time I drove my PORSCHE in the rain the back end came around, even at moderate speed. I doubt that driven at the normal posted speed limit on the street, a CGT would be ill handling.
All racing teams spend extreme amount of time dialing in a car so that it would handle the way a driver want it to handle. Changes could be as small as changing the air pressure in the tires to changing spring rate, to setting wings angles.
Instead of two people dying that day, there could have been four people if Ben had hit the Ferrari in front of him.
I think that anyone of us driving in the same situation as Ben would have done the same thing, try to avoid the Ferrari that just came on the track.
The event that the Ferrari club put on was NOT a DE in the sense of racing, that is why passengers were allowed in the Ferrari and CGT.
More info on this tragedy and the life of Ben from LaJolla can be found on the 6speed forum.