326 replies to this topic

[Graham Clayton]

My mention of Johnny Cecotto driving a BMW 635
Group A car in the James-Hardie 1000 reminds me of the time
in the 1985 race when BOTH JPS BMW 635's managed to get
bogged at the same time in the sand trap on the outside
of the bottom of Mountain straight early in the race.

It was one of the more bizarre accidents I have seen in all
of the years I have been watching motor racing.

Would list members have their own favourite bizarre
accidents/incidents?

[FLB]

Two tales from Indianapolis:

1. During practice for the 1987 Indy 500, Tom Sneva left the pits with a notebook on his rear wing.

Yellow flag.

2. During the 1995 race, Arie Luyendyk gave Scott Sharp "the bird" during the early laps. His headrest flew off.

Yellow flag.

[Ray Bell]

The man who bought the Bob Jane Jaguar 3.8/4.2, a Tasmanian whose name escapes me, wasn't too bright.
He took out a bit of fence in an excursion shortly before the pits at Longford one day...
His crew wasn't so bright, either. As the car roared off past the pits, a huge section of 8" mesh fencing dragging along behind, he raced out and tried to jump on the fence to get it off the bumper!

Just imagine the mess if he'd been dragged along with his foot caught in the mesh!

But if you really want to get into silly antics, Lou Molina and Silvio Massalo are your pair... like driving their car to Bathurst with wine aplenty, hourly pit stops to change wheels... all the way from Melbourne!

[Schummy]

About bizarre accidents I suppose one that has to qualify is the infamous crash of Coulthard in the pit lane (well, entering it).

I can remember another one in Jarama. Maybe someone here can remember it better: Villota (in a one year old Williams, I think) was about being lapped (just before a "S" curve) by the leaders, I think Jones and Laffite, who was fighting closely. One of them chosed the inside and the other the outside, then the "insider" one somehow touched and locked wheels with Villota and the two cars slided straight through the corner, just in time to collect the other leader who was passing on the outside! In a single maneouvre the three cars crashed out of the race! It was a low speed accident and somehow it had a comic appearance in the TV when I saw it.

I can't forget neither the Chistian Fittipaldi's amazing flip on the final straight in Monza GP.

These are my favs bizarre F1 accidents, I think. But there are so much of them...

Best regards everyone.

[Gary Grant]

Taki Inoue's Footwork being hit by the so-called 'safety' car in Monaco has to be up there too.
Didn't Stefan Johannsson hit a deer in Austria circa 84/85? Fortunately this accident occurred without injury (to Stefan that is - the deer was a little secondhand as I recall ;) )

[MattFoster]

How about Taki being hit by a medic car in Hungary?

Stefan hit the deer in 1987 in the Maclaren.

[Zawed]

The whole Taki Inoue saga...

Berger being taken out by a TV camera from Alesi's car.

[LB]

Few more to add.

1975 Austria GP winner Vittorio Brambilla crashing whilst celebrating the win!

1982 Belgian GP - Salazar and Giacomelli crashing on the formation lap.

Also the multi pile up at the Daytona 500 in the early eighties caused by someones bumper coming off further up the field (Cale Yarborough?).

[Milan Fistonic]

Giulio Cabianca was killed when the throttle on his Cooper stuck open while testing at Modena. The car left the circuit through an open gateway into the street where it collided with a passing taxi killing Cabianca and the three occupants of the taxi.

Is this the only time a driver has been killed in a road accident while driving a single seater racing car?

[david_martin]

Originally posted by DrGrant
Taki Inoue's Footwork being hit by the so-called 'safety' car in Monaco has to be up there too.
Didn't Stefan Johannsson hit a deer in Austria circa 84/85? Fortunately this accident occurred without injury (to Stefan that is - the deer was a little secondhand as I recall ;) )

The deer incident happened when he was driving for McLaren, which would have made it 1987. The car was a total write off. Probably a good thing he was driving a well engineered carbon fibre monocoque. If he had been driving some of the other cars present that weekend, he may well have been killed.


From forix. I hope Rainer and Joao don't mind too much.

Inoue getting run over by the fire marshalls in Hungary was pretty bizarre. Left him writhing in pain on the ground with a broken leg while they attended to a miniscule fire at the rear of his Footwork. That guy just did not have much luck......

[fines]

The Jaráma incident was in 1980, the 'Pirate GP', when Reutemann and Laffite came up to lap Villota for the 37th time, I think, and Jacquot thought about relieving Lole off his lead - didn't work out!

There was another parade lap crash, at Indy in 1957, involving Eddie Russo and Elmer George, father of Tony. BTW, does anyone know what exactly happened to George? I only know that he was shot on the eve of the 1976 500.

[LB]

Actually that reminds me didn't Kevin Cogan wipe out the front row at Indy one year on the warm up laps. Roberto Guerrero spun from pole too as far as I can remember - bare in mind my memory is not 100% lucid at the best of times!

[Stefan Ornerdal]

In 1971 at Mantorp Park in Sweden, Ronnie Peterson was leading the F2-race by miles. When he came over a crest - a hare was sitting in the middle of the race line. Nothing was left of the hare. First thing Ronnie said in the interview after the race was "poor little hare, I am so sorry".

Eurosport has shown many times when RR-rider Max Biagi (?) rides over an ugly and dangerous cobrasnake in Malaysia or Indonesia. Nothing left of this animal either.

Stefan

[david_martin]

The snake was at Shah Alam in Malaysia. I think it was Gino Borsoi in the 125cc GP...

[TNSFH]

The yellow flag in last years, or the year befores Daytona 500 because of a turtle on the backstreach.

Paul Tracy's plenumn explosion sending the pop-off valve into the front suspension of a following car sending it into the wall.

[MrAerodynamicist]

Didn't schumacher hit a hare once. If I'm visualising the photo right, it must have been sometime '96

[david_martin]

while we are on the subject of motorsport encounters with animals, didn't someone have a close shave with a grey kangaroo at Bathurst during the not too recent past?

[Gary Grant]

If someone did hit a kangaroo then that has to be a contender for most bizarre accident, although I hear they aren't great things to hit (they weigh a fair bit apparently). Do you know if the driver was alright david?

Since we're on the subject, I recall Jackie Stewart having a fair few run-ins with animals too. He hit a dog in the 1970 Mexican GP, and I recall reading (though I cannot remember where, for the life of me) about a time at Monza when he was leading the slipstreaming pack and a hare ran out right in front of him. Apparently swerving would have taken half the pack out of the race with him so he had no option but to keep the foot down and make full contact. Jackie then spent a few nervous laps checking the tyre in case it had been punctured by a bone.

Just thinking it must have taken incredible coolness and speed of thought to just hit the hare as the natural instinct would surely be to swerve. Shows why some drivers are on a different level to others, I suppose.

[david_martin]

I don't think the kangaroo was hit, it just jumped across the path of a car running across the top of the mountain.

[Bernd]

I'll tell you Kangaroo's are hard bastards I hit one doing a good solid 60KPH one time it just jumped up looked at me with an odd look on its face then merrily hopped away!

I wasn't feeling so merry myself when I looked at what it did to the front of the car.

[Vasco]

And what about the sheep Makkinen hit last year in Corsica?
I also remember vaguely a Martini Lancia 037 (Markku Alen?) running over a cow in Argentina in '83 or '84.

[Graham Clayton]

Wasn't there a F1 driver who was killed in the early 1960's
after a bird smashed into his helmet, which temporarily
blinded him, and which caused his car to crash off the track,
which did kill him?
The odds of that happening must be astronomical.

[Gary Grant]

That was Alan Stacey in the 1960 Belgian GP, and if you consider that cars regularly drove through wooded areas and open countryside in those days, perhaps it wasn't that unlikely.
In fact, the same thing happened to Jim Clark a few years later, this time, thankfully, without serious injury.

[Wolf]

Graham, I think You're referring to Spa, where ... Sh**t, I remembered the incident being mentioned here recently and went off to check it up (on account of my unreliable memory cells) when Gary's post popped up. Just my luck, one of the rare things I know- and someone beats me to answer it. ;)

[Wolf]

But to be honest my answer wouldn't be nearly as informative. For example, I never knew something like that happened to Jimmy too. This is a place for me.... Yeah, I like learning- so I have something to forget.

[Gary Grant]

one of the rare things I know

Exactly the reason why I posted so quickly!;)
BTW, Clark was hit by a bird in practice for the 1966 French Grand Prix (looked that up just now). He was injured enough to miss the race, but was back a few weeks later.

[Bernd]

The Clark incident was at Reims he of course had to retire, it was actually quite common in those days a driver getting hit by a bird.

[Gary Grant]

Re: the 'Taki Inoue getting hit by a course car' incident at Hungary above, this is from the Taki Inoue Unappreciation Page.



Don't be alarmed - Taki suffered only slight bruising to his leg. What with this, and the incident in Monaco where his car was hit by the safety car, goodness knows how many more similar incidents we'd have to discuss if he'd stayed in F1 any longer...

[djned]

that is one of the funniest photos i've ever seen. i couldn't believe the comedy of injuries inoue suffered during his all-too short career. there was a hilarious retrospective interview in f1 racing a while back with the guy too.

[marglar]

Originally posted by Bernd
I'll tell you Kangaroo's are hard bastards I hit one doing a good solid 60KPH one time it just jumped up looked at me with an odd look on its face then merrily hopped away!

I wasn't feeling so merry myself when I looked at what it did to the front of the car.

Thats the funniest thing i've read all day, thanks for the laugh!

[Graham Clayton]

The photo about Inoue and his accident with the
marshal's car reminds me of a accident at Spa in
the mid 80's that turned into a major disaster due
to the actions of the track marshals.
It was either a F2/F3000 car that had a minor spin
on the straight just after Eau Rouge (if my memory
serves me correctly).
The car had minor damage where it had touched
the armco. Anyway, the marshalls attached a tow
rope to the rear of the car to tow it away.
However, in the course of towing the car away,
the marshalls managed to overturn it TWICE,
turning a slightly damaged car into a very badly
damaged car. I can imagine what the poor
driver must have thought watching the whole
debacle!

[Darren Galpin]

Following a similar vein, this year at the Macau Guia touring car race, a Renault Megane went down an escape road, through several tire walls and out onto a roundabout outside the circuit, hitting a passing truck and killing a pedestrian.

[Ray Bell]

The kangaroo - the famous one - was bolting across from outside the circuit to the inside in front of Jason Bargwanna... later he crashed in the same spot, just out of Forrest's Elbow.

Once I was commentating on a Formula Vee race at Amaroo Park, and as they came round the last corner to complete the first lap several cars spun ... marshals rushed to clear the cars, the last one, Alan Goldsmith's car, had this largish marshal pushing it, the thing was in gear, the ignition on...

I continued with the commentary, the cars coming back into sight down the hill... the car's fired, it's getting away... the leaders are heading for Winfield, now the Goldsmith car is gathering speed, it's heading for the lake.... the leaders are coming out of Winfield, the track's clear... the car can't be stopped, it's in the lake!

[FlagMan]

I recall a Posche 962 being totalled by a hare at Silverstone in the late 80s/early 90's.

The car was coming into Club corner (when Club was a real corner) when the hare (a pregnant doe) ran out from behind the 100 m marker board and hit the left front corner of the cars spoiler, which wrapped round under the front wheel - causing the car to slide straight on into the tyre wall, ripping most of the left side of the car away. The driver was unhurt but was pretty shaken up - when they got him out of the car he just sat there repeating the German for dog - he was convinced that was what he had hit.

This was an accident when new was going to happen - the hare had already crossed the track twice during the proctice session - I guess in this case it was third time unlucky.

Silverstone is famous for its hares - Jochen Mass once hit one (again at Club) in a 956 - without apparent damage to the car but a women in the crowd was not too amused to have her white outfit covered in diced hare....

[Darren Galpin]

Jacques Villeneuve hit a fox while testing his BAR at Silverstone last year.

[MrAerodynamicist]

http://www.ecdl.hut..../anim/inoue.mpg is an mpeg of the incident!!!!

[marglar]

I remember that clip and i'm still trying to figure out why on earth Inoue parked his car on the circuit instead of pulling it off the track completely.

[Graham Clayton]

One of the other bizarre crashes was the unfortunate one that killed Tom Pryce at the 1977 South African GP at Kyalami.
Pryce was killed after he hit a marshall who was crossing the
track. The marshall was carrying a fire extinguisher, which after
the impact, hit Pryce flush in the helmet.
Pryce lost control and crashed, being killed.

[Gary Grant]

The Pryce incident was an utterly pointless waste of two lives...

On a lighter note, didn't someone have an incident relatively recently when a mechanic left a spanner in the footwell of the car, and it became enmeshed in the pedals (Herbert?). Or am I just getting reality and fantasy confused agaian?

[Vasco]

Maybe bizarre accidents are just victims of a "curse", if you consider the way the very first lethal accident happened:

The "Course de Périgueux" back in 1898(!), different classes of cars were sent out to the road with no particular order.
Little after the start, Monsieur Montariol, driving his small Benz Parisienne, heard the big Landrey-et-Beyroux of his friend Marquis de Montaignac catching up. As Montariol pulled over to let the quicker car overtake him, Montaignac took off his hat and waved to thank his friend even before he had completely completed his move and stabilized his line.
That careless mistake caused him to swerve; if the Marquis could recover the control of car, Montariol paniqued with the move, left the road and rolled over.
Meanwhile, Montaignac looked back to see the tragedy he had just caused, lost control of his vehicle once again and hit a tree along the road.
The two mechanics died immediatley, Montariol survived with minor bruises, but Montaignac succumbed to injury a couple of days later, after assuming all the responsibilty for the disaster.

So how stranger can you get?

I have a picture a picture of this accident but I can't post them anymore. Is this related to the renovation of the Atlas Forums?
How does it work now?

[Vasco]

Don't ask me why, but I've just noticed that, if you try to follow the link, Geocities won't let you see the picture; but if you copy the adress to your adress bar, it works! :confused:

So here is the picture:

http://www.geocities...l/accident2.jpg

[Ray Bell]

I'm having trouble with pics too, which a check of the Picturesque Lobethal thread will show...

There was an incident at Ballarat Airfield in 1951 when the base commander was to send the field on its way. Many of the cars were still being tended on the grid when he asked "Is this how I do it?" ... simultaneously raising and lowering the flag...

There were mechanics still under cars... which took off while they were there... John Cummins reports that some were "Trying to climb up the legs of their mates" as they struggled to avoid an uncertain fate.... nobody was hurt.

[Gary C]

I remember when I was working on the F1 Digital TV service at Silverstone in 1997. It was practice, Irvine in the Ferrari ran over a rabbit (hare?) just before Copse. We had a close-up camera on it & I replayed the incident about ten in REAL slow motion! The thing just atomised! Real good fun! We then sent a camera to the Ferrai pit to get some shots for when it came in at the end of the lap, sure enough he did, the car ended up spattered with blood & a little rabbit-type leg was extracated from the left hand radiator!!! Ha!

[John B]

The Andre Ribiro crash (one of several he had that weekend) with the PacWest cars at Road America in 1996 deserves a mention. I can't remember exactly what the dynamics were, but somehow he was able to cause some sort of strange chain reaction that took both PacWest cars out even though he was between them - Blundell was launched over Ribero into Gugelmin - who happened to be leading them both on the track!

Mansell's pit accident with Dennis Vitolo is a perennial favorite for many.

The late Dale Earnhardt was involved in a few tussles especially on short tracks which helped build his legend. At Bristol (94 or 95) he bumped Terry Labonte into a crash as he took the checked flag as the winner of the race. At the old Richmond in the mid-1980s his celebrated contact with Darrell Waltrip eliminated the top 5 and handed Kyle Petty his first win....it isn't the same since Feb 18....

[fines]

Thinking of Indycars, there was that incident at Elkhart Lake in 1998 I think, when Bryan Herta had to break hard to miss his team boss and spun at the downhill left hander behind the paddock. His car came to rest against the barriers, facing the oncoming traffic, and just when he was preparing to unfasten his belts and step out, an Eagle (PJ Jones ?) came screaming along the armco, hitting the Reynard head-on and nicely sliding along its bodywork until it handily sat on top of it. It all looked so outrageously funny it was hard to take in that it actually had been a very life threatening accident, for if Herta had been just that little faster in climbing out, the Eagle might have hit him in the chest!

[maxie]

Originally posted by Darren Galpin
Following a similar vein, this year at the Macau Guia touring car race, a Renault Megane went down an escape road, through several tire walls and out onto a roundabout outside the circuit, hitting a passing truck and killing a pedestrian.

I remember that car was driven by a Belgian (or Dutch) driver. He knocked down a couple and the wife died.

[Pete Stanley]

John B, that entire 1996 Elkhart race would fit under the "bizzare/strange" heading. Non-stop action. Two cars flipped over in different accidents, Davey Jones and Parker Johnstone. Ribiero not only took out the whole PacWest team, but Greg Moore as well. Moore went for a wild ride all the way from the Kink to Canada Corner. And, rounding the final turn, Al Unser, Jr.'s engine blew, handing a very unexpected victory to Michael Andretti.

The 1998 Herta/Barron accident - Herta did have one injury. At the last second he ducked down and put his hands up in front of his face. He had one injury: scraped knuckles!

[ry6]

I was at Kyalami, back in 1977 at the South African Grand Prix, when the tragic Tom Pryce accident happened.
The (old 2.54 mile) Kyalami, that is before they altered it to its present go kart size, had a very long straight. But there was a noticeable "hump" just before the pits as the track started to run downhill to Crowthorne Corner at the end of the main straightway.

A young fire-marshall, I think his name was Janse van Vuuren, ran across the track in front of the pits carrying a fire-extinguisher. Because of the "hump" he probably could not see the approaching cars - or maybe he misjudged the speed.

Tom Pryce, at full speed (probably 170 mph?) in the Shadow came hurtling over the crest and hit the marshall. I believe that poor Pryce was decapitated. The fire extinguisher was flung high into the air and flew over the main grandstand. Heaven knows what damage it would have caused had it fallen amongst the spectators!

The Shadow carried on for probably another kilometer dead straight before running over the sandtraps and crashing into the safety fence. I seem to think it even passed one of the cars in front of it in the area past the brakemarkers at the end of the straight.

It was very sad as Tom Pryce was beginning to demonstrate his talent and looked destined to make his mark as a top driver.

Formula One is dangerous enough without "external" forces such as the one in this incident.

[Ray Bell]

Dead straight, with the power on... horrendous!

[Schummy]

In respect to Tom Pryce tragic accident, I think Pryce was not decapitated because I saw video images of poor Pryce's extraction of the car. He was in a stretcher without helmet and with his face with blood but no unrecognisable.

Sorry with the gory details. By the way, the video of the accident is really shocking respect to the poor fireman. This is definitively one of the nastiest motorsport accidents