The Danger of Vintage Racing

[CurtEgerer]

A scene from this weekend's vintage races at Road America .... ouch! (no serious injuries).

[SandyI]

Yikes. What a mess of muscle cars. Good to know no one was hurt.

I don't know the course. Is that a heavy braking zone before a tight left-hander?

[pwd72s]

Damn, that's sad...Good to hear that nobody got hurt, other than in the wallet.

[CurtEgerer]

Sandy: that's the long main straight, no corners in sight. They were taking the green flag ... or at least they thought they were.

More photos and some comments from those involved:

http://www.pbase.com/atrltd/bric2005

[Jens]

It could have been much worse, but the damage to the cars looks pretty heavy. Is the total 16 cars involved?

[CurtEgerer]

The guy in the Mustang says he had 2000 hours and 40K into his car. Apparently, there were some NASCAR-style fist fights afterwards.

[sithot]

Amateur racing is a great place to get hurt. I've lost 2 friends and know of countless other stories.
In fact anything amateur that involves speed, wheels, water or contact is dangerous. Why? Because the participants ARE amateurs. THE most dangerous species because they do not make their living at whatever it is they attempt. Their reflexes are not the best, their intuition sucks and they just don't THINK like a professional.
Would you rather race Tony Stewart, Michael Shumacher, Sebastien Loeb OR a 50ish-plus fat, out of shape, rich guy trying to live out some sort of Walter Mitty dream. I'll pass. Since I played on a semi-pro (VERY semi) football club and got the living hell knocked out of me on a bush league cheap shot 30 plus years ago I've been very dubious about amateurs. A stay in the hospital will do that for you.

Tom


Tom

[Paul Schooley]

I never got to read the writeup, but man....that shore looks like a very expensive mess to me. Imagine the pain the builders of those cars are feeling? I'm not so sure I could bear to see the work I put into my car trashed like that. I'm thinking having it stolen would be better than seeing that.... Helloooo Allstate?

[Jay911T]

Chris Streit (cstreit on Pelican) was in this race and has his account of it on the GruppeB board. In summary, he said it was amateur night out there, and vowed never to do that race again. In the last 5 years he said there's only been one year that race didn't have a car get cracked up. Luckily, Chris wasn't involved in the accident.

[sithot]

There is one AMATEUR "sporting" event that may be considered P.I. for our discussion, (ask me if I care) however, let us consider "Amateur Night" at the local strip club. Nobody ever gets hurt.

Tom