Micheal Park Crash Pics

[6'bore]

I think he'll at least take a year off... Now coming back depends on many things, usually this "need for speed" takes over and makes the driver come back but perhaps with another mindset.

Andrea Aghini, for example, lost his co-driver in an accident 2 or 3 years ago and has been rallying since last year, but this depends on the driver and there's really no point in speculating now.

Motor racing drivers don't have a need for speed. Once they have had it. it becomes a normality. Hence why most retired racers don't have particularly exciting cars. I.e. Damon Hill.

[Jack_Bauer]

even if he only does a few drives now and then as soon as he manages to start feeling better i would like him driving again... maybee Dakar or something

I wouldn't have thought the Dakar would be a logical step for him after this. The Dakar tends to have a much higher injury/fatality rate than WRC.

I think everyone would understand if he decided not to return at all, I can't even imagine the guilt he must be feeling at the moment.

Hence why most retired racers don't have particularly exciting cars. I.e. Damon Hill.

What cars does Damon Hill drive, just out of interest? I know that he bought one of the original 2.5l Noble M12s after testing driving one for a magazine when they first came out, and I remember hearing that he upgraded to the 3.0l model at least once. Pretty exciting cars if you ask me!

[orne]

Motor racing drivers don't have a need for speed. Once they have had it. it becomes a normality. Hence why most retired racers don't have particularly exciting cars. I.e. Damon Hill.

Of course they don't take their need for speed to the normal roads since it's way more unpredictable and unnecessary especially after you "discharge" that need elsewhere.

Retired racers are of course older and like other people, tend to calm down with age(Tiff Needell seems to get crazier with age).

[UCR]

Very sad, just makes you think.

Its unlikely but my brother had a crash today while racing, and the same thing could have happend to him.

r-i-p

[henk4]

these sort of accidents always invoke ambiguous emotions with me. The loss of life is the ultimate loss one can suffer and you feel compassion with his next of kin. On the other hand we have seen numerous very close calls being televised so everbody is aware of the inherent dangers and when things go terribly wrong that should be accepted. Rallying does not have the large run-off zones of a closed race track, and is therefore even more vulnerable. Every participant accepts those risks and and the closeness of natural obstacles along the track is seen as something attractive, both for the drivers AND the public.

[Mustang]

Hent the one thing that really struck me was the lack of marshals



not one of these guys is a marshal and there are atleast 2 other competative wrc cars there which means atleast a 4 minute gap until they got there, there is no way in hel that markko would of been able to do anything the help Micheal Park, which also means that the following wrc cars would be going flat out when they reached this point and look where the pug is... halfway across the road

To be honest id like to see wrc GB suspended from the WRC callender untill they sort the damn thing out it has really sucked a huge amount of cock these last few years with basically no speccies last year as prices were waaaaaaaay to high and when you did pay they kept you enclosed in spectator pens where you could hardly see anything.

Just think.. if there werent any speccies there markko would of been on his own for what... 2 minutes till the next car arrived and basically not have a clue what to do.

When the rescue cars did finally get there they were a landrover and a LDV van if they were at the start of the stage thats what another 7 or 8 minutes till they oculd reach the car... so were now abou 12 minutes into the crash rite... im sure they could of had an air rescue helicopter out thereor atleast on the way in that time..


WRC GB has got to be one of the poorest events on the callender and is a real dissapointment to be honest

EDIT: taking a second look you can see that the mitsu is still moving in the pic and its a Citroen driver slowing him down... where were the marshals, where was anyone else to help them...

The other thing that i just remembered was that when cars had passed the accident they carried on at full wrc pace even though the stage had been stopped... WTF!

[netburner]

They went on because they didn't know the stage is stopped! We had the same thing here in Germany after the crash of Solberg last year. Duval was the first driver after the crash, slows down to pass it and then goes on in full speed, because nobody called him to ay the stage is stopped.


But as you said: there aren't marshals, why? What are they doing if they are anywhere near that???

It's obvious, that the FIA is working in two different kinds:
1.) here in Germany: everything must be right, there must be 150000 marshals at every corner and safetypoints for spectators 1 kilometer away from the road.... why? because we have the rally for only 4 years now and want to leave it in the calender for the next few years

2.) in GB and some other countries: only some marshals standing around somewhere, spectators as near to the stage as possible... why? because these countries have the worldchampionship rallys since the world was built and there is no matter of changing something...

well, we have seen, that there is a matter of changing something, sadly we had to loose Michael to see it...

[IBrake4Rainbows]

It doesn't seem like such a bad crash, Ther have been much worse where people survived, but My Heart goes out to all those involved.

Must ben horrible living with the fact you've killed one of your Best Mates

[Cotterik]

It doesn't seem like such a bad crash, Ther have been much worse where people survived, but My Heart goes out to all those involved.

Must ben horrible living with the fact you've killed one of your Best Mates

on the whole it wasnt, but look at the photos the car hurtled into the tree in the weakest spot on the roll cage right on the door next to park, penetrating the bodywork deeply and straight into park himself. Instant death.. and a tragedy

[greg.harvey]

Very sad.

As soon as I heard I said it must've been a freak accident. Rally cars are immensely tough. For me the sport really couldn't be any safer than it is, being what it is, and tragic accidents are inevitable.

My heart goes out to Markko Martin. He must be destroyed. I'm not surprised he's saying he'll never do WRC again.

Just a quick note on Mustang's comments re: spectators. I agree there has to be a middle ground and spectators shouldn't be in "pens", but at the same time I strongly disagree with the scenes you see at some of the southern European rallies with spectators practically standing on the track. The drivers hate it too. They are trying to race flat out and are constantly trying to mask the fear of what will happen if the hit a stupid spectator.

Though to be fair, the English crowd doesn't tend to do that sort of thing. I remember going to Clumber Park and being able to roam everywhere, with the marshals just making sure you didn't stand anywhere really dumb or cross the track at an unsafe time.

[Matra et Alpine]

Mustang, I've not seen any reports yet.

Do you have any info that there were no marshals ?

In this situation a stage marshals FIRST job is to ensure there is no risk of subsequent damage. So that is checking the car is "safe" and THEN getting as far up stage as possible to wave down followign cars. If they were in that car then they only put their own life at riska nd those following. I'd liek to know more about the events and actions by those before proceeding with speculation.

Long stages can't afford to marshal every corner and so marshal coverage is "spread out" a little more. On club events it's even MORE so !!

Rallyiing can never provide the level of support to prevent these tragedies. It would require a trained paramedic within spread 30seconds along the whoel length of a stage Looking at the impact, I'd say this was instantaneous. The shock on the brain and the spinal column would have been traumatic )

[orne]

(...)

Just a quick note on Mustang's comments re: spectators. I agree there has to be a middle ground and spectators shouldn't be in "pens", but at the same time I strongly disagree with the scenes you see at some of the southern European rallies with spectators practically standing on the track. The drivers hate it too. They are trying to race flat out and are constantly trying to mask the fear of what will happen if the hit a stupid spectator.

(...)

That's very rare these days.

About the marshalls, in this particular case, anything they could do would make things worse for Michael since he coulndn't be taken off the car without an emergency vehicle with equipment to take off the door, still, there should be have marshalls nearby.

I also believe the death was instantaneous, just look at the size of the tree, if it was bigger, there would be more space to contain that energy.

[IBrake4Rainbows]

....Proving Conclusively why Open Top Based cars should not be allowed in WRC.

[Matra et Alpine]

....Proving Conclusively why Open Top Based cars should not be allowed in WRC.

This was widely debated at the time of the CC development.

The ability for a WRC to survive incidents is based on the ROLL CAGE which is an integral part of a WRC car. It' snot just a bolt or weld-on bit.

How the cage folded will be part of the investigation and may lead to an update of the requirements. BUT this is a quite narrow tree but stable and strong enough not to give. So ALL the energy in the vehicle is concentrated in that one point on the side of the vehicle. Look how much it compressed the bottom sill - traditionally one of the STRONGEST parts of every vehicle.

A tin top would have present very little additional protection (IMO)

Also, at those kinds of speeds even if it HAD been stronger it would have taken a miracle to survive the impact

[IBrake4Rainbows]

I Guess it was just a set of freak circumstances which allowed this to happen.

The Tree is still standing, it's just a shame that Park isn't