Awesome V8!!!

[phunkydude]

[bass_twitch]

Farr...
Decent effort

[Shane001]

Having driven racecars and crashed a racecar it usually doesn't faze me much when I see them crash, I know how safe modern race cars are.

But when there's fire involved, that's when it gets scary! That was a massive and very scary accident. The absolute last thing you want as a racer are flames inside the cockpit. Thankfully Karl was able to get out quickly. Had the doors jammed the outcome could have been a lot worse.

[Astron_Boy]

Yeah, epic crash indeed.

Lucky they didn't get trapped.

Man, being the guy who came up from behind, you're heart would absolutely stop.
That's going to be playing on his mind for a while.

[Shane001]

Nothing he could have done, he had no way to know the car was stalled on the grid. The first he saw of it was when the car he was following swerved suddenly to the grass, and by then it was too late. I doubt he even got his foot on the brake.

If you watch me racing you'll notice I usually take it a bit easy off the starts and for the first half a lap for this very reason. I always keep a little buffer between me and the cars in front. If you're pushing the bumper of the car in front and something goes wrong you've got bucklies.

But I'm a budget racer with no money to fix a written off car, these guys are professionals with crash budgets.

[Astron_Boy]

Nothing he could have done, he had no way to know the car was stalled on the grid.

Oh no, I full well know that, just the mental image of seeing the rear of the car get closer and closer and you can't do a damn thing except wait for the impact.

That will be playing in his head for a bit to come.
wooh, 2222 posts!

It's like a magic number on an odemeter reading.

[Shane001]

TBH I doubt he would have any memory of the actual impact, it happened that fast.

Now the flames, that he will remember

They interviewed him later and he said he couldn't get out of the car because of the fire surrounding it, he had to wait until they put it out, that will haunt him for a while...
Do I get out and risk getting burnt, or stay put and risk getting blown up! At the time the safest place for him though was in his car until they put the fire out, so he made the right decision

A testament to the safety of modern motorsport though.

[SchumieFan]

very good safety, though looked like they had some hot hands.

i bet the guy who rammed him had some mega sore shoulders from the harness today

[Shane001]

lol, yeah his ribs would have been a bit sore. 37G impact recorded

Unfortunately gloves and boots are only single layer, so yeah the heat gets through these more so than the suit which is 4 layers plus underwear.

[SchumieFan]

wish we had some onboard footage, looks like that fire would have been in the cab with him. surprised no one hit him with an extinguisher.

do they add colour to the v8 fuel so you can see when its burning? i remember the indy car fuel fires when the alcahol/methanol was invisible and drivers on fire while safety crew wondered what was going on

[Shane001]

Yep, the rear 'firewall' that's supposed to separate the fuel cell from the cockpit failed, not surprising considering the impact, so fuel spilled into the cabin also, so yeah he was pretty much engulfed in flame.

Methanol fuel is scary sh*t, can't see it burn!

V8's run E85 which although it's largely Ethanol still burns with color as seen in the videos.

[Shane001]

Link to video interviews;
http://www.speedcafe.com.au/2011/05/02/ ... e-burning/

[SchumieFan]

^^^ cheers for that.

interesting his seat burnt to his suit and his suit to his belts...

lucky bloke, dont think he'll be racing in 3 weeks