GeneRally International Forum

Bouncebackability wrote:I watched this documentary the other day, its a true reminder how far motorsport and F1 has come, and its now available on youtube, so i suggest you set aside an hour and watch this.

Saw it on IPlayer, a very good watch. Was touching to see Jochen Rindt's wife speak about the time

Btw. Jochen Rindt's wife was Finnish.

Terrible terrible that Williamson accident...

David Purley : Through his tears he said, "I just couldn't turn it over. I could see he was alive and I could hear him shouting, but I couldn't get the car over. I was trying to get people to help me, and if I could have turned the car over he would have been alright, we could have got him out." Later, when the immediate grief had receded, he admitted, "I didn't even think about the heroism or any of that rubbish. I just did what comes naturally to a trained soldier who sees a fellow in trouble." Ian Philips - journalist and friend : "Purley actually had a conversation with him. David was trying to turn him over and told me afterwards how Roger had said to him, For God's sake, David, get me out of here', and he just couldn't get him out.

Brazilian Montana Cup driver Gustavo Sonderman died after accident on Interlagos, on Coffee turn.
Ironically same thing happened to your teammate Rafael Sperafico on 2007.
One minute of silence please.

terrible shame, its a dangerous part of the track, high speed, close wall.

@ The Noose, the full length of that Williamson accident, and Purleys reactions afterwards were just heartbreaking, it was the first time i had seen such a long clip

Manzur, that accident was so similar to Sperafico's it's unreal!

That stretch of racetrack has been the most dangerous bit of track in the world for years. It should have been changed after the Webber/Alonso shunt in 2003.

R.I.P.

@ BBA, That accident clearly shows how poorly trained and equipped the marshals were.

The Roger Williamson accident was the single biggest shame on the history of Formula 1, there will never be a more tragic moment in any sport ever. As the video says, Zandvoort was meant to be the safest track in the world at the time and for a driver to lose his life in such a way due to bad organisation shouldn't have been allowed.

It's a shame what happened to Purley after that. He was almost killed himself at Silverstone in 1977, after his throttle stuck open and he hit a wall at exactly 90 degrees and went from over 100mph to 0 in just over 2 feet. untill Kenny Brack's accident a few years back it was the highest Gforce ever survived by a human being (about 180G). He later died after crashing his stunt plane into the sea at Bognor Regis

That Sondermann crash was terrible, the race should've never gone on in those conditions, far too dangerous...

Lukeno94 wrote:That Sondermann crash was terrible, the race should've never gone on in those conditions, far too dangerous...

You can't say that a race should be postponed because of rain, ok there are exceptions but it was nowhere near as bad as Malaysia 2009.

The problem was the wall on the outside there is too close to the track and it for some reason tends to spit cars back out into the track (Sarrazin, Webber, Sperafico and now Sondermann) they should either move it back or install a SAFER barrier. Look at the Kahne/Truex crash this weekend and see how well the SAFER barrier absorbs the impact and stops the cars bouncing back into the line of fire.

Yes, unfortunately that crash just proved the point by Ecclestone that the track is awfully outdated. Ok, Bernie obviously meant the pit facilities, but at the same time they would have had to update that whole part. It is quite surprising how they haven't done anything for that inside wall after what happened in F1 in 2003. Back then there at least was a tyrewall, but (propably because this is a smaller series), there was just the armco waiting for the cars. An impact like that on the speeds they go around that part is just not going to look good. They should indeed put a SAFER barrier on the outside as a temporary solution and redo that part completely soon.

But indeed, the race shouldn't have been stopped. Even the F1s have driven in worse conditions than that. That was just another case of many things happening at the same time.

Few hours ago Czech rally driver Jiří Skoupil died at Rally Šumava Klatovy.
His Citroen C2 S1600 crashed heavily into tree at the second special stage of whole rally, codriver Jiří Volf has injuries but he is stabilized.
Rally has been canceled immediately.
Very sad day of Czech motorsport .

Profile of Jiří Skoupil

R.I.P. Jiří

It's big pity.

I can´t belive how sad was this weekend . Today one more rally driver died....
In Poland, Sylwester Olszewski at Rajd Swidnicki Krause,
his codriver is currently in hospital and is out of life danger.

Poor drivers. seems that all hard crashes happen in rallies, see r.kubica.

Jeez... just when rallying appeared to have gotten safer, the dangers are heavily reinforced again...

Well this weekend was extreme, though rally is much more dangerous than circuit racing. Crash of Skoupil happened in low speed +-60 kph, he hitted tree from side . And Kubica had badluck because he choosed not so well organized local rally in Italy, if you remember he got injured because of sharp end of armco (?) barrier, clearly fault of organizers. Yes, rally can be dangerous .

R.I.P. Roland

30/04/94

17 years have passed, much has changed, but that horrendous weekend will never, ever be forgotten.

It is so sad that I have to mention one more guy.

Matthew Marker

died after crash into tree at 2011 Olympus Rally in USA.....

It has been 25 years since Henri Toivonen passed away.

That was a sad day, this caused also the end of an era in rallying. RIP, Henri.

Wolfgang Graf Berghe von Trips died in Monza exactly 50 years ago. He was one of the greatest racing drivers in the early 60-ies.

And don't forget the terrible number of fans passing away with him.

Trigger Happy wrote:And don't forget the terrible number of fans passing away with him.

And you know, Phil Hill won the title at this year, but you shouldn't forget that he died due to the Parkinson's Disease in 2008.