Halfie is affraid

BBKing · 23 Apr 2002, 16:15 (Ref:268554)

Quote:

“I would not like to race in America because for me, ChampCars are far too fast and far too dangerous. I want to be able to walk away from motorsport at the end of my career.”

Too fast and too dangerous? Why is he in this business? Cooking might be safer, then again they work with hot things....LOL

Dr. Austin · 23 Apr 2002, 16:29 (Ref:268568)

Look at Alex Zanardi and Greg Moore. I don't think it is unreasonable to want to avoid that sort of fate. Champcars are wickedly fast. F-1 cars reach peak speeds of over 200mpg on very few circuits. champ/IRL cars are over 220+ for the entire duration of a (oval) lap, surrounded by concrete walls and no kitty litter. If someone spins in front of you at 220+, where do you go?

That sort of danger is acceptable to not everyone. In my mind, all the stupid swerving and dirty tricks will kill you alot faster than responsible wheel to wheel combat. If I were Ralf, I'de be more afraid to race my own brother than go wheel to wheel on an oval at 225+mph. I might still die in an accident, but there would never be a case of "deliberate, but instinctual."

Mr V · 23 Apr 2002, 16:49 (Ref:268589)

i think rafe's got a point...some people want to take the risk (fortunatly for us fans) and some don't. it's no different from normal civilian life imo, why do some people join the army or the fire brigade and others get an office job? (no dis respect to office workers!)

personally.i fear for johnny herberts ankles at the indy 500!

Sato san · 23 Apr 2002, 16:51 (Ref:268590)

yer,....im alittle worried about that too., but on the other hand im excited to the point that a driver of Johnnys talent is getting his chance to crack indy..its a tough one .

Damon · 23 Apr 2002, 17:35 (Ref:268632)

If you crash at high speed in any form of motorsport you're going to be in trouble. I agree with you though Doc, at least in Champ cars you don't get people chopping and weaving all over the track just to stop the guy behind getting through.

Nicholas · 23 Apr 2002, 17:56 (Ref:268648)

Yeah, wrong series BBKing

neilap · 23 Apr 2002, 20:36 (Ref:268829)

RS is a punk that lacks heart. It is that simple. He is a good driver but he seems to think he is too precious. Maybe the safety workers in CART should say they would never work in F1 because flying wheels kill people. He did not want to race in the US after 911, he did not want to be in Brazil without a bullet proof car. He needs to be in a bubble. I thought it was a bit arrogant of JPM (or was it JV) when he said many of the F1 guys could not race in CART on the ovals because they dont have the heart. I understand why he said so now. Lets not foget how many people die in F1. Racing involves risk. RS should retire and didicate the rest of his life to get nude pictures of his wife off the net.

mariov · 23 Apr 2002, 20:51 (Ref:268852)

Quote:

Originally posted by mr v
i think rafe's got a point...some people want to take the risk (fortunatly for us fans) and some don't. it's no different from normal civilian life imo, why do some people join the army or the fire brigade and others get an office job? (no dis respect to office workers!)

personally.i fear for johnny herberts ankles at the indy 500!

The levels of safety is not the same, and he does have a point..Yes Moore, Zanardi, and Piquet comes to mind....

Raoul Duke · 23 Apr 2002, 21:40 (Ref:268910)

I agree wholeheartedly with the Doc. Why don't you just talk to Greg Moore, Alex Zanardi or Jeff Krosnoff about how you think it's so cowardly to be afraid of such risks.

BBKing · 23 Apr 2002, 21:45 (Ref:268917)

If you want to follow that logic. Why do they pay F1 drivers that much money? they are not taking any risk. Why would they earn more than an accountant or a lawyer?....LOL

Inigo's "Cart Guy" has a new meaning now, hasn't it?

Jay · 23 Apr 2002, 21:51 (Ref:268923)

I don't think Michael Schumacher is earning so much more than say Jensen Button because Michael is taking more risks... Drivers that win get payed big... It has nothing to do with how much they risk.

It's not like F1 drivers aren't taking any risk... I don;t think any of them would say F1 is a safe sport.

BBKing · 23 Apr 2002, 21:55 (Ref:268926)

A good accountant or lawyer makes much more money than a bad/not experienced one.

Wrex · 23 Apr 2002, 22:09 (Ref:268936)

Is this a real quote BB, or did the voices tell you again?

To those that are getting into Ralf, how many of you are champ car drivers?

Looking at the number of serious injuries and deaths in champ cars as opposed to F1, I hold a similar view.

Dr. Austin · 23 Apr 2002, 22:24 (Ref:268943)

All of this is dangerous. There is little sense in trying to express which is more dangerous because you can't get any more dead in either series. Dead is dead. There are no degrees.

But soft tire walls and flexible barriers will hurt your feet alot less than a concrete wall. And you will get hurt alot less in a car that only peaks it's speed a couple of times per lap. You can crash at 100mph and it will hurt, even after the gravel slows you and you smack a soft barrier. But nothing like it will if you lose it at 225+mph and smote a sheer concrete wall.

Think back to the last time someone was really, really hurt in an F-1 car. Luchiano Burti was shook up, but he was back in the car after not too long. The last guy? It had to be schui in 99, but even that was not so bad that it stopped him from winning the next two championships.

In the last year we had alex' sad accident. Big Mo had so many bad ones on ovals that he finally had to hang it up before he really got messed up permanent. Just Sunday, two guy were injured in the IRL, one with a broken back. And salazar has been nearly crippled for the third time on an oval now.

Is it all stupidly dangerous? Of course it is. That's why I keep harping on how important it is to drive responsibly. But i don't think less of Ralf because the speedways scare him a little. Real greats like Jochen Rindt just walked away from the speedway fully terrified. I don't blame Ralf a bit for wanting to stay alive.

I just think more of a guy like buddy Lazier who drove the race of his life with a back broken in eight places and won his spot among the immortals. Or lauda wearing freshly grafted buttskin for eyelids and nearly winning a second championship in agony few of us could imagine. These men have REAL guts.

Taking a measured risk is a fine art. You do everything you can to assure your own safety, you accept responsibility for your own safety, and you get on, responsibly, with the job. That is the smart way to do it. Ralf measured the risks and found Champ/IRL cars to be a risk beyond what he was willing to take.

I think Ralf has relaxed his agressive nature because the australian shunt really scared the **** out of him. He knows the irresponsible driving is only going to lead to someone's death, and it isn't going to be his. Until the FIA gets a handle on the dirty tricks, I don't blame Ralf for not wanting to throw his life away.

PS.. BB, when I see Ralf do something as dirty as his brother has done, you will no longer be his most severe critic. That would then be me. And that goes for any driver on the grid.

neilap · 23 Apr 2002, 22:27 (Ref:268944)

Well if that is the case. I will be taking the metro bus home today. There is far more risk in driving on the streets of sunny South Florida than there is driving at 200 mph with a group of professional drivers. Anyone who drives on a daily basis is taking more risk than these CART drivers. If our cars were only half as safe as Champ cars and F1 cars. Does anyone think Zanardi regrets the day he got into a Champ car? He was injured doing what he loved to do the most in life. How many of us are living our dreams? These racers are, injuries or even death did not cloud their decision to race.

Dr. Austin · 23 Apr 2002, 22:55 (Ref:268961)

You accept the level of risk you take on a daily basis. It is in nearly every decision you make. Do I chance getting out of bed every morning? It's as simple as that. Ralf chose to lead the risky life of a Grand Prix racing driver, for God's sake. How can anyone even think for a minute that the guy is a very brave man?

Raoul Duke · 24 Apr 2002, 07:12 (Ref:269106)

The bottom line is, F1 is safer then Cart. The circuits are safer, the cars are safer and the speeds are lower. Do you, sitting in your high chair critisizing GP drivers like this, honestly think you could driver at 200+mph for over 3 hours withought ****ting in your pants?. I doubt it.

Every one of those 22 drivers out there have guts because they risk their lives to do something they are passionate about. If you think F1 is risk free, then by all means, get inside one of those cars withought any safety gear, no helmets, no fireproof suits, and you'll be a man with a lot of guts......all over the race track that is!.

Nivola · 24 Apr 2002, 07:23 (Ref:269113)

Is it me or has it only been Greg and Jeff that have died racing a Champcar????????????(not including Scotty Brayton RIP) If that is the case over the death per year idea i think Champcars are safer then formula one! You need Balls to win on Superspeedways and ovals, which most of the people in F1 dont have and for that matter the killer instinct anymore.

Raoul Duke · 24 Apr 2002, 08:24 (Ref:269141)

Gonzalo Rodrigez(spelling?) also died the same year as Greg. But there are also a lot more injuries in Cart then there are in F1. Over the course of a season it is not uncommon for 1 or 2, or even more drivers to be sent to the sidelines for severall months to recuperate from injuries.

Dr. Austin · 24 Apr 2002, 15:09 (Ref:269456)

Gonzolo Rodrigeuz died on a road course, but it was a really freak, unforseen kind of accident. Of course we lost Scott and there was also Jeff Krosnoff in a wheels contact accident that launched the car into a bridge/pole//tree.

You can die at any time, anyplace in either of these series. However, season and career ending injuries are much more common in CARTY/IRL because of the concrete walls and stupidly high sustained speeds injuries.

Of the most recent accidents, Jeff's was utterly stupid and caused by one car accidently moving over on another. Jeff ran over the other guy's wheel and was launched right into a bridge/tree/pole. That's the kind of violence you can expect when you have cars running into each other's wheels and with all the idiotic swerving, it is only a matter of time before it happens in F-1.

Scott Brayton's accident was a pedestrian looking one, but it was before high cockpit sides and HANS. He reportedly hit his head on the wall. Everyone misses Scott.

Rodrigeuz went off where almost no one had ever gone off before. Now most of this is speculation by the people who observed the film and the telemetry, but it makes sense to me; He crested the hill, lined up for the corner and hit the curb, causing his foot to splip off the brake. By the time he could get his foot back on, it was too late. He hit wall dead head on and flipped over it, falling about twently feet onto the roll bar, which appearantly held. It seems he snapped his neck in the first impact. He was not wearing HANS.

And poor Gregg was a victim of everything going perfectly wrong. Because of the multiple impact nature of the accident, and the amount of times he hit his head, a HANS device would probably have been useless. Hit the wall at the right speed, angle and spot to create WCS (worst case scenerio). Anyone who has seen it now knows the violence that one of these cars is capable of unleashing. And sadly, Gregg's accident is the kind where nothing can be done about it. Oh, you can move the walls back or pave the infield, but there are other tracks and other walls just waiting. If the safety upgrades are not token, why weren't they made to every speedway in the country? Answer, they only needed to addess the spot where Gregg was killed and people will forget about the other dangerous walls.

Notice that all of these accidents were at terminal velocity or just below it. GP cars achieve that about twice per lap for a mere handful of seconds. IRL/Champcars live there. If you are going to go 220+mph, it is only a matter of time before something goes wrong. It is just statistics, the law of averages, call it whatever you like. But if you go 220+mph for hours on end, it will get you alot quicker.

Dr. Austin · 24 Apr 2002, 15:21 (Ref:269473)

And, of course, we will always have the possibility of another Gordon Smiley accident. Gordon had run well in practise and looked good for an Indianapolis 500 front row starting spot. However, the team lost it's way and Gordon was struggling on qual morning. When his engineer suggest that gordon just put the car in the show and the back up car was available if they got bumped, gordon said his last words "Forget the backup. I'm going 200mph with THIS piece of ****." And he did. The wall just got in the way.

Gordon went into turn three and did not lift at all. The tail stepped out just a little and Gordon tried to correct, but the rear wheels suddenly stuck and the car turned right just enough so that it was now pointed dead straight into the wall at a 90 degree angle. If you have the opportunity to see the video, please refuse to watch it. It was the most sickening thing i have ever seen, but little could have been done to prevent it. And nothing has been done to stop it from happening again. The wall is still there, only it and the fence are higher as a result of the work done to comply with FIA/Nascar regulations. It can happen exactly like that the very next time they run there.

And it is just a matter of accepting that some things can't be controlled. You go 200mph and **** happens. It is worth noting that the speedway plans to install soft wall technology before this year's 500. I hope it works well. I would have rathger seen them test it somewhere else where the speeds are lower. Since we haven't seen this technology in use before, there is no telling the kinds of unforseen scenerios that might unfold. Still, it is a massive step in the right direction.

Mr V · 24 Apr 2002, 15:49 (Ref:269490)

Doc..........am i right in saying with regards to Gregs accident, where he went off there was a "drop" of about 6 inches from the paving to the grass, and this was the initial cause of the "flip"?

i have to say that for me, Gregs accident was proberbly even more horrific then Ayrtons, i watched the race live, and knew as soon as i saw the accident that it was fatal, at least with Ayrtons there was a glimer of hope at the out set, although, maybe because of Imola '94, i no longer lived in my little world where racing drivers were immortal.......again, Imola proved that!

Dr. Austin · 24 Apr 2002, 16:14 (Ref:269511)

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by mr v

Doc..........am i right in saying with regards to Gregs accident, where he went off there was a "drop" of about 6 inches from the paving to the grass, and this was the initial cause of the "flip"?"

there was an access road (probably for the ambulance and construction equipment) that Gregg ran over which popped the car up a little. The Handford device, travelling backwards, produced enough temporary lift to to hold the car up long enough for it to rotate, and when it came down,
rear wheel first, the wheel dug in and flipped the car. The TV cameras use a really long lens and did not provide a perfect representation of the angle which the car hit. It looked from the films that he hit the wall at a perfect 90 angle, but the tire marks on the grass reveal that it was more like 45 degrees.

The entire area has now been paved so there is nothing to pop the car up. Even at that, we have seen these cars get air under them and jump up into the sky.

moore's accident was just the sadly perfect combination of speed, angle and location. I think he was lost to us in the very first impact, but without getting graphic, any of the other tumbles would have been enough.

Please don't mistake my candidness on this as more of my biting sarcasim. I was too shocked to watch the replaty for weeks. Moore was everyone's favorite. The only way to make safety advances is to leave the emotional attachment out of it. No analysis can be accurate unless only the hard facts are considered.

"although, maybe because of Imola '94, i no longer lived in my little world where racing drivers were immortal"

The mortaility thing sure brings the sporting aspect into sharp focus, doesn't it? Money, fame, success all mean nothing if you are dead. It has to be about more than those things. It has to be about love of sport or it is all wrong.

macdaddy · 24 Apr 2002, 16:34 (Ref:269527)

And there have been so many terrible wrecks that could easily have been fatal. Gugelmin, Servia and Gidley attested to this just last year. Zanardi and Tags goes without saying. Remember when Villeneuve slammed into Hiro Matsusita (sp) as the latter's car sat sideways and stationary on the Phoenix oval? Or a few seasons back when somebody's car ran right up on top of a parked Bryan Herta? The open-wheeled aspect of these cars make them inherently more dangerous. How many times has a car been made airborne, flying over another, and nearly missing the driver's helmet? It is only by the grace of God that we do not lose drivers on a weekly basis anymore. In any of the major series. The human body was simply not designed to tolerate these kinds of g's. Anybody who straps himself into a racecar, I don't care if the top speeds are 100 or 200, is a very brave soul and a hero to me.

Dr. Austin · 24 Apr 2002, 17:50 (Ref:269582)

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by macdaddy

"It is only by the grace of God that we do not lose drivers on a weekly basis anymore."

The hand of God is always there. My views on this will probably stir up a religeous argument which has no place here, so I will save them for an appropriate venue. But from a personal standpoint, I am at complete loss to explain my survival through several nasty accidents with any other explaination.

Brian Redman is a jovial sort of bloke. He is the #1 hero of all time in my book. Once, I asked him if he ever looked back at his Targa florio and Nurgurgring (the REAL one) exploits and see the maddness. He replied "Well, yes, of course we were all mad. I'm not surprised at how many of us were killed. What surprises me is that some of us lived through it all."

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