Just got back from the Pikes Peak Hill Climb. There were lots of very scary crashes this year. Here are two of them

[WheelHor]

and




It was a crazy long day of racing and waiting for racing to begin again after a bunch of crashes and red flags. I'm sure there will be some better videos tomorrow.

Oh and a side note- the record got beaten by Rhys Millen in his Time Attack car

[jaystone]

First they paved it all...next year there will be gaurdrails all the way up. Two years from now it will be an escalator and driving up it will be moot.

[WheelHor]

Another shot:




scary stuff

[hainuS4]

[Elbows]

1) Holy cow. It sounds like bad news for the guys in that last video.

2) They freakin' paved pikes peak!?

[mellbergVWfan]

Wow. It's incredibly lucky there was no one on that section behind orange fence on the first crash.

[Tiny4cyl]

what i learned today was everyone says holy shi- no matter where you are

[mk_ultra]

crazy

[derekjl]

Wow. It's incredibly lucky there was no one on that section behind orange fence on the first crash.

Think of how many people would've died if the car went off just 10 feet sooner.

[VpfinnersW]

Very scary....I really hope those involved are okay

[Cousin Eddie]

I read elsewhere the Evo occupants survived, how were the others in the first crash?

Unreal.

[KJ Picayune]

I read elsewhere the Evo occupants survived, how were the others in the first crash?

Unreal.

Via Twitter:

Paul Dallenbach‏

Throttle stuck on me, very scary. nothing left of the car. Took a flight 4 life ride but today was not my day to go. I am very sore.

[Swapped6n]

This makes me sad


Every once in a while I see reminders that autosport is indeed quite dangerous after all.

This is one reason why I never would be able to be a rally driver. The tracks are enough fun for me.

I really hope everyone above makes a full recovery, both physically and mentally...

[Tim@VMG]

2) They freakin' paved pikes peak!?

Yes. The whole course is paved now.

Another shot:




scary stuff

And that, children, is why we don't stand on the outside of a corner at the racetrack.

-Tim

[McBanagon]

Looking at the results, I'm really surprised how paving the whole thing mixed up the grid.

2011:
http://www.usacracing.com/usac_live/ppihc_timing
2012:
http://www.usacracing.com/ppihc/ts/2012

The Time Attack, Open, and 1205cc dual-sports really gained some speed. Used to be that the unlimited and open wheel cars were the fastest.

[SVT2888]

Another angle of the second crash

[seadoo2006]

Another angle of the second crash

Not to make fun of a bad situation, and having just seen Nitro Circus 3D, I think they beat Travis Pastrana's 7-3/4 flip record ... I counted 9 full flips ...

[GahannaKid]

This makes me sad


Every once in a while I see reminders that autosport is indeed quite dangerous after all.

The danger is part of the allure of it all. When you're racing up Pikes Peak as fast as you can then you're fully aware of the fact that something could got wrong at any moment. If they wanted to be bored and safe they'd have been accountants.

[hipster.]

And that, children, is why we don't stand on the outside of a corner at the racetrack.

This! Every time I see something like this, and many times it's Rally, and a car eats it into the crowd I think "Why were you standing there?! Haven't you watched videos on YouTube?!"

[ATL_Av8r]

The danger is part of the allure of it all. When you're racing up Pikes Peak as fast as you can then you're fully aware of the fact that something could got wrong at any moment. If they wanted to be bored and safe they'd have been accountants.

Isn't that the only reason spectators go, as well?

[RacingManiac]

Looking at the results, I'm really surprised how paving the whole thing mixed up the grid.

2011:
http://www.usacracing.com/usac_live/ppihc_timing
2012:
http://www.usacracing.com/ppihc/ts/2012

The Time Attack, Open, and 1205cc dual-sports really gained some speed. Used to be that the unlimited and open wheel cars were the fastest.

I think some unlimited were amongst the crashed out cars....from Speedhunter's piece Millen also got a break with the weather clearing on his run vs Romain Dumas' Porsche.

I think the paved time probably stand to go down by a lot if other people who were otherwise not doing something like this(due to the mixed surface) will enter now...and bring faster cars. Though I can also see that they might try to rein it in since the likelyhood of a very bad accident is much higher...

[SSLByron]

zomg they paved my racetraks y r these cars so much faster i remember when we used horses we had records it was just dirt faaaaaaaillllll

[McBanagon]

zomg they paved my racetraks y r these cars so much faster i remember when we used horses we had records it was just dirt faaaaaaaillllll

From an engineer's point of view, the mixed surface presented a unique challenge to come up with the best setup for both. The half tarmac, half dirt stage was also fun to watch by many.

While I'm disappointed the mixed stage is no more, a fortunate side-effect is that we're going to see some really fast times by some new tarmac-only track cars that couldn't run previously.

[jaystone]

Like Guy Martin said about the Isle of Mann TT, ”The reason I do it is because if you get it wrong, it’ll kill you… If you think it’s too dangerous then go home, cut your grass and leave us to it”

[RacingManiac]

Like Guy Martin said about the Isle of Mann TT, ”The reason I do it is because if you get it wrong, it’ll kill you… If you think it’s too dangerous then go home, cut your grass and leave us to it”

Thats in UK, in US I think the lawyering aspect might be bad if it does get worse as far as accident goes...

[Tim@VMG]

This! Every time I see something like this, and many times it's Rally, and a car eats it into the crowd I think "Why were you standing there?! Haven't you watched videos on YouTube?!"

People forget, sometimes.

I've covered some ALMS races as a credentialed photographer, and even the people who are supposed to be professionals forget sometimes. They lecture us on it each morning at the photog's meetings, and then you'll go out on track and still see people doing stupid stuff, including walking with their backs to traffic, hanging around not paying attention on the outside of a turn, etc. It's also really easy to lose track of your situational awareness when you're staring down a viewfinder through a long telephoto lens - you just don't have any peripheral vision at all, and if you're not careful, you can get hurt.

We've all seen the footage of Allan McNish's crash at LeMans 2011, but the thing that gets me, every time I watch it, (other than the fact that I am supremely happy that Allan, who is a really nice guy, was not seriously hurt) is the photographers who are walking away from the corner, backs to traffic, and are completely unaware that they're about to get pelted with a giant cannon blast of race car parts traveling at a high rate of speed. They all ought to have known better.



I make it a point to watch some of those youtube videos every time I go out on track, just to remind myself not to get teh stupids. I also generally plan out a "where am I going to run to" plan at each place I stop to shoot, and I try to never, ever turn my back on traffic.

-Tim

[RacingManiac]

Everytime I watch that McNish crash I am just amazed that no one got hurt....the amount of debris being thrown at all the photogs there were unreal...

[hipster.]

Everytime I watch that McNish crash I am just amazed that no one got hurt....the amount of debris being thrown at all the photogs there were unreal...

Right?!

And do you see that last tire land and just bump into the guy has he sort-of-casually strolls away.

[Tim@VMG]

Right?!

And do you see that last tire land and just bump into the guy has he sort-of-casually strolls away.

Probably a panic reaction thing, but also those wheels are really lightweight (I can easily pick up a wheel / tire with one hand), and once it was going that slowly it probably wasn't carrying that much momentum any more. He was really lucky, though.

-Tim

[tip]

in for later

[mtbscoTT]

My old club had a couple of motorcycle roadraces at the Autodromo de Monterrey, Mexico back in the '80's. The locals would stand on the outside of corners and run across the track in front of bikes doing 150mph like you would at a motocross course.
We complained to track management and the next day a busload of guys in black fatigues carrying machine guns drove up from the nearby policia academy. Crowd control got much better.

[snafuracer94]

People forget, sometimes.

I've covered some ALMS races as a credentialed photographer, and even the people who are supposed to be professionals forget sometimes. They lecture us on it each morning at the photog's meetings, and then you'll go out on track and still see people doing stupid stuff, including walking with their backs to traffic, hanging around not paying attention on the outside of a turn, etc. It's also really easy to lose track of your situational awareness when you're staring down a viewfinder through a long telephoto lens - you just don't have any peripheral vision at all, and if you're not careful, you can get hurt.

We've all seen the footage of Allan McNish's crash at LeMans 2011, but the thing that gets me, every time I watch it, (other than the fact that I am supremely happy that Allan, who is a really nice guy, was not seriously hurt) is the photographers who are walking away from the corner, backs to traffic, and are completely unaware that they're about to get pelted with a giant cannon blast of race car parts traveling at a high rate of speed. They all ought to have known better.



I make it a point to watch some of those youtube videos every time I go out on track, just to remind myself not to get teh stupids. I also generally plan out a "where am I going to run to" plan at each place I stop to shoot, and I try to never, ever turn my back on traffic.

-Tim

Amen! As a spectator I always look for an "out" because ANYTHING can happen. I have seen lots of very lucky people survive accidents from inside and outside of the car. Awareness can save your butt!! Keep on taking good race pictures!

[turbo_nine]

Thats in UK, in US I think the lawyering aspect might be bad if it does get worse as far as accident goes...

Actually they do have lawyers in the UK. They just aren't called lawyers.

[Cooley]

Standing on the outside of a corner with these cars going at 11/10ths is just crazy. Darwin is watching...

[WheelHor]

Outside of the corner is just stupid. We were always on the inside, and quite a few times had to explain to people what could happen to them, so they eventually moved. sigh