69 replies to this topic

[AUSTRIA]

Second time Button was hit by a bird, missing narrow his helmet.

I can remember Helmut Marko in 1972, who was hurt by a stone, flying exactly through in his eye.

And Berger was lucky, when the on-board-cam of his team-mate Alesi damaged only his front-spoiler.

I'm sure, there were simular occurences, injuring drivers, but don't know them.

E.T.

[Ray Bell]

One driver (Alan Stacey?) died at Spa in 1960 when he hit a bird, and I seem to recall that Jim Clark had a close call at Rheims in 65 (?) with the same thing.
Graham Hill hit the de Beaufort camera at the Nurburgring and took to the bush in 1962 German GP practice.
Tom Pryce's death was caused by colliding with a fire extinguisher carried by a marshall in a dip in the straight at Kyalami, the car continuing flat out to the end of the straight then going straight into the barrier.
I can't think of who it was, but someone else died in a mysterious accident and his it was thought to have been caused by a bird. Not Jim Clark, though.
Come on Austria, why don't you just email me direct with these questions - you know reading all this stuff is taking poor Art away from his nurse...

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[Walrus]

Another strange accindent: Giulio Cabianca, Italy, died in Autodrome Modena June 1961.
He was testing a Cooper-Ferrari car when his gas pedal sticked to flat-out position. The Cooper continued it`s way thru a gate(which was open)to outside and went to a road next to the track. He collided with taxi full of customers in the same road few seconds later.
Three of the taxi`s customers and Cabianca were killed in the accindent.

[Roger Clark]

In 1958 at Silvestone, Jean Behra's BRM collided with a hare. One of the unfortunate animal's bones caused a puncture whuich resulted in Behra's retirement.

[f li]

Austria - S. Johannson (in a Malboro) ran into a deer (deer was not sponsored).

[This message has been edited by f li (edited 03-12-2000).]

[Ray Bell]

The truly unfortunate thing about the Goodwood incident with the hare and the BRM (was it Behra? or Brooks?) was that the car was going so well and actually had a chance in the race.
And then ..... unbelievably, when it pulled into the pits with the driver saying something was wrong (the tyre had just gone down a couple of pounds so far) the bone was at the bottom and couldn't be seen - he went back into the race..... briefly.

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[Ray Bell]

Don't forget what these things can do to cars - how many races have been lost by a stone getting caught on a pulley and flicking a belt off?
That's the reason Kleinig lost the 1949 Australian Grand Prix... see the 'former days' thread.

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[Don Capps]

At Reims in 1966, Jim Clark collected a bird in the face and was incedibly lucky not to be seriously injured - or worse - and sat out the race with a badly swollen eye. Pedro Rodriguez was his sub if I recall.

Jackie Stewart hit a dog at the Mexican GP in 1970 with neither the dog nor the car faring well.

There are more...

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Yr fthfl & hmbl srvnt,

Don Capps

Semper Gumbi: If this was easy, we’d have the solution already…

[Leif Snellman]

Tazio Nuvolari collided with a stag during practice for the Donington GP 1938. Some sources say that Nuvolari escaped unhurt, others that he cracked a rib. Anyway, the Auto Union driver escaped the crash much better than the stag. Nuvolari had the head of the poor animal stuffed and had it on the wall at his home in Mantua.

[AUSTRIA]

Stewart's dog was not the first. Also Louis Chiron hit a dog in the non-WC GP du Salon in 1946. The dog was lacereted, Chiron was not hurt, but they needed about twenty minutes to repair the car and he finished sixth. Without the accident he certainly had won the race .

[BRG]

Didn't Jackie Stewart have an encounter with a Silverstone hare? I remember him coming round Stowe corner in a Tyrell , hitting something and going a long way off into the corn on the infield. No injuries to him but it was an ex-hare...

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BRG

"all the time, maximum attack"

[Ray Bell]

Thanks, Don, I wasn't sure of the year at all, and it takes too long to look that kind of thing up.


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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[Ray Bell]

In the 1959 Australian Grand Prix at the 4.5 mile Longford public road circuit in Tasmania, Doug Whiteford's Maserati 300S broke a universal joint. Quite a shame, Doug was not a potential winner (he'd previously won three AGPs), but such a good looking car...
The joint bounced off the bitumen and hit Alec Mildren (still to win his first AGP, and a contender in this one) in the helmet. Mildren was dazed, threw up in the cockpit, but soldiered on, finishing fourth. The next year he would win... and then retire.

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[Falcadore]

Andy Rouse once hit a dog in the 1987 Bathurst 1000 touring car race at Bathurst. Car received fairly light damage considering.

Stefan Johansson's McLaren clobberred a stag at the Oesterreichring in 1986, why he wasn't killed no-one will ever know.

Troy Corser collided with a Seagull at the 1996 Australian Superbike Grand Prix at Phillip Island. Corser was alright but both bird and Ducati were very bent.

Tommi Makinen and Risto Mannisenmaki hit a cow on the 1997 Tour de Corsica in the Mitsubishi Lancer RS-E Evolution IV and plunged down a ravine. Both very lucky to be alive.

Carlos Sainz and Luis Moya struck a sheep in the 1996 Rally New Zealand in their Ford Escort RS Cosworth. The car continued but the poor sheep exploded on contact with the rally car. Moya can be literally be seen going through the 'ooooo yuck' phase on the in car camera the Ford service crew no doubt went through at the end of the stage. The car may have even been retired because none of the mechanics could handle the smell.

[PDA]

rally cars hitting sheep used to be fairly common in road rally days in Wales, Derbeyshire etc. However, on one occassion, during a rally in Derbeyshire, a friend of mine retired after hitting a Kangaroo! (That's Derbeyshire England by the way) Yes, its absolutely true.

[BRG]

PDA

Let me back that story up - I know of similar cases,except that I think they are wallabies rather than kangaroos, there has been a group surviving in the wild on the Derbyshire/Staffordshire border for many years. They escaped from a zoo and against all the odds survive despite the less than hospitable climate of the area.

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BRG

"all the time, maximum attack"

[BRG]

Oh and while I think of it, where I live in the Thames Valley in England, we have at least one wild flock of parakeets, agains escaped cage birds which have survived and bred in the wild for some 20+ years.

Sorry, it's off the thread, but may entertain our Aussie friends!

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BRG

"all the time, maximum attack"

[Ray Bell]

Yeah, we're always entertained dodging the fauna. Barry and I have lots of experience... wallabies and roos, Wombats all sorts of things.
Once, driving through the Tasmanian countryside, a friend said (referring mostly to the vast numbers of dead Tasmanian Devils on the side of the road): "There's lots of dead wildlife around here!"

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[luisfelipetrigo]

AUSTRIA:
Do not listen to RAY BELL and keep asking the quesitons in this forum (or if you mail directly to him make sure you post his comments) I do not want to miss his knowledge.

I though I was going (for once) to contribute something new ... but Don Capps beat me to it.

I was at the "Autodromo Ricardo Rodriguez" (see comment below) in 1970 when Jackie Stewart had to drive around the track with one of the marshals to ask the crowds to move back from the edge of the asphalt. In those days there was no fencing to keep people at a distance, in some places all the 'protection' available was a boulder of dirt about 1 meter high - which was used as a place to sit and have a better view !!!

Then, during the race, Jackie hit a dog and retired. Forix says it was suspension, I think he was fed up with the Mexican crowd's insensitivity and the lack and incompetence of the 'security forces'.

-
The Mexico speedway was originally called "Autodromo de la Magdalena Michuca" after the part of Mexico City where it is built. Then, after Ricardo Rodriguez was killed it was re-named "Autodromo Ricardo Rodriguez" then, after Pedro died it was re-re-named "Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez" (hermanos = brothers). I guess you have to die to deserve recognition


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Saludos
Luis Felipe

[Ray Bell]

They were recognised in death because they were recognised in life - please don't lose sight of that, and thank you for the compliments.
Regarding crowd encroachment, the 1949 AGP at Leyburn (see details in the thread) was threatened by the unfenced crowd moving too far onto the 100 ft wide track, so one of the faster cars drove down close to the crowd to warn them back.
In 1939 (again, see Aust GP former years thread), John Crouch told me he had to aim at the crowd in the town of Charleston to get them to move back so he could take his line at 125mph through the curve past the pub. Winner Tomlinson, with his MG cranked up close to 130mph, said that you could see people crossing the road in the distance, but at that speed "you'd be on top of them in no time."
Bathurst in its early days was bedecked with signs "Please don't walk on track," but, as previously posted, the Bathurst book (everyone should have this) carries a picture of people standing in front of the safety fence in the esses. And the track was dirt then.
I'll post the picture again as soon as Mark and I get together...
There's another story about Bathurst, and it's not about non-combatant contact or close calls, but about a driver thinking he was going great, keeping his 125mph car on the crown of the road down the narrow but very fast (downhill, over one mile) Conrod Straight. Until he had a Cooper Climax go past him on each side!

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[BRG]

Luis Felipe

Qué tal? Good to hear from you again.

Wasn't there an incident quite recently at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez during a major motorcycle event (was it a GP meeting?) when a truck drove across the track during qualifying? I believe that the FIM cancelled the event and haven't been back since?




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BRG

"all the time, maximum attack"

[Keir]

I think Jackie bumped into his ego at
Silverstone in '73 and spun into the weeds.

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"I Was Born Ready"

[Ray Bell]

I recall Graham Hill telling of a woman that walked across the road at Spa carrying a bucket of water EVERY practice session. For those who want a bit of realism on the subject, look at the picture at the head of 'Circuits I Know & Love' thread.

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[SteveB2]

I couldn't put my hands on it if my life depended on it but I read an interview with Brian Redman where he described getting hit by a bird at LeMans. I don't remember when or what he was driving. He finished his stint while bleeding profusely. Can anybody else provide any better background than my pathetic effort?

[Ray Bell]

A motorcyclist was practising late in the day at Oran Park (this was back in the sixties) when a teenager drove across the track in the watering truck. The point he drove across was at the blind 'flip-flop' (as the motorcyclists call it) or 'Dogleg' - and the results were not pretty.

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[Dave Ware]

Check these out:
www.fastdetails.com/wallpaper/nuked1.jpg
www.fastdetails.com/wallpaper/nuked2.jpg

From Sebring this year. You might need to look closely at all the stuff in the air on the second photo.

[Ray Bell]

What are we looking for here?

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[EddieJF1]

Pigeon pieces

[cjs f1]

-Jackie Stewart also hit a rabbit at Monza in 1969. He was in a classic Monza slipstreaming group when they came to the hare at 150 MPH, Stewart didn't want to swerve because he thought that any sudden movements might cause an accident within the group and might result in a killed driver.
When asked if he was concerned about the state of the rabbit after hitting it, he said he ws more concerned if a bone might of puncture a tyre or something. He won that race.
Rick Mears hit a rabbit at the Indy 500 in 1988 and went on to win the race as well.

And that Audi #78 that hit the dove in the picture posted, it won THAT race.

Maybe hitting wildlife obtains some sort of luck in some gruesome way?

[Ray Bell]

Not so when Dick Blythe hit the kangaroo at Caversham in the sixties. Kangaroos do have a habit of upsetting best laid plans...

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[Eric McLoughlin]

Pigeons act so noncholant sometimes (or maybe they're just deaf!)and pay the ultimate price. At the 1994 Festival of Speed a pigeon nearly met his maker at the hands of a 1957 Vanwall. The bird just sidestepped out of the way. Could'nt be bothered flying out of the way. I have the incident on video and you can hear lots of guffaws in the crowd. The pigeon was'nt even fazed by the BRM V12.

[This message has been edited by Eric McLoughlin (edited 03-25-2000).]

[AUSTRIA]

Thank you Dave. Not only because they match well in this topic. Beautiful sight of the R8R.

[Dennis David]

Instead of being hit by birds the drivers in Brazil are being hit by falling signage including a slew of Marlboro signs. I'm with Louis Stanley, the thing he regrets most is bringing Marlboro into F1!

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Regards,

Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david

Life is racing, the rest is waiting

Grand Prix History
www.ddavid.com/formula1/

[Ray Bell]

Hear! hear!
I suppose he couldn't see that he killed BRM, so he wouldn't regret doing that...

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[AUSTRIA]

I hunted down one more case from this year. In January Irvines car lost water, flooded the rear tyre and he turned into the gravel. While turning around, his helmet got open and a whirling stone hit him 1 cm left of his left eye. This could have been a near chance for Burton to catch a cockpit ...

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E.T.

[This message has been edited by AUSTRIA (edited 03-26-2000).]

[Dennis David]

BRM was already dying he just prolonged the agony!


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Regards,

Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david

Life is racing, the rest is waiting

Grand Prix History
www.ddavid.com/formula1/

[Ray Bell]

Yes, Dennis, you could probably say that.
But I prefer to think that where there's life there's hope....
whilever there was a team, a bunch of fabricators, designers and mechanics, there was a hope of getting the package together and running cars. It was under Louis that this all failed to happen, but my point was that he would probably fail to agree with that view.
Williams, after all, was resurrected a few times before it struck it right with Alan Jones and so on - contracts ran out, deals came to an end, but Frank kept it going till he got the combination together that took him to success, then it just bred more success. Certainly, it was much easier to do it way back then than it would be now... but BRM's death was way back then.

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[buddyt]

Is it not strange that something designed for safety caused a fatality. Remember catch fences and the wooden poles that were sawed half way thru to slow out of control cars down. Mark Donohue died after being hit by one of these poles in the head. Also remember how the cars would become tangled up in the wire fence and how hard it would be to remove it. Bet Flagman does.

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"Speed cost money, how fast do you want to go?"

[Ray Bell]

John Hugenholz was the man who spread the catch fence message around the world (he also had something to do with the design of Zandvoort and was commissioned by Honda to design Suzuka). At Zandvoort Brabham got into the fences during practice, getting wrapped up in the wire mesh and was stuck there for some time praying that the dripping petrol didn't meet up with any source of ignition...

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[Jhope]

There was another tragedy in 1994!!! In Montreal, Mika Hakkinen Was on a quick lap during Friday Qualifying, when out of nowhere, a groundhog ran onto the track and met Mika with a thump! The bloodied MaClaren entered the pits straight after. In an interview later on, Mika jokes and pretended to feel sorry for the animal. I thought this was a bit tasteless considering what happened 3 races earlier.

I cannot begin to count how many bones I find on Circuit Gilles Villeneuve after a race or qualifying session.

Jason

[CVAndrw]

Here’s Lauda in To Hell and Back, at the 1985 Canadian GP:

“…I was on the crucial qualifying lap when the yellow flag came out. I eased off and, just at that moment, I noticed a beaver sitting by the side of the track to my right. He was staring straight at me and I thought to myself, please, don’t get yourself killed, just stay where you are. As it happened, he didn’t budge and I flashed past, missing him by inches.

I qualified in seventeenth position. When I mentioned the beaver to Ron Dennis, he simply smiled at me sympathetically, as if to say: poor old Niki, he’s reduced to telling tales to explain away his lack of speed. The next day one of the track photographers started showing round shots of the beaver. Dennis must have felt a sudden twinge of conscience: ‘You know, I really thought you made that up.’

[Huw Jenjin]

I remember seeing an excellent picture of Tom Pryce's Shadow being raced by a hare at Silverstone. The caption did not say which was over taking which.
Then there was that animal that hit Damon Hill in Adelaide, Heinz Frentzen at Imola, and Jaques Villeneuve in Japan.

One track I used to drive on suffered with Coyotes at night!

[Ray Bell]

Are you sure you've got the circuits right for the 'animal' that hit Hill and Villeneuve? I think Adelaide is correct, but was it not a European circuit for Villeneuve?
By the way, have you posted on the introductions thread - it's open to Kiwis, too?

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[This message has been edited by Ray Bell (edited 04-04-2000).]

[Barry Lake]

Speaking of animals (those outside the cars, that is) and race circuits brings back memories of Oran park, near Sydney in the early 1960s.
During the week its still operated as a dairy farm. You had to do a couple of slow, but preferably noisy laps to shoo the cows away before you started practising.
With an open-wheel racing car, you either had to modify your lines to avoid the cow pats on the road, or wait for a touring car or two to turn up and clean them off the track for you.
There also was no-one at the circuit in those days - no office, just an old double decker bus for time-keeping. You paid your track fee at a farm house nearby.
I can remember being there on my own, with no crew and no other cars or drivers present, and wondering, if I crashed, how many days I might be lying there injured before someone found me...

[Ray Bell]

You speak, of course, of before the aforementioned kid in the truck incident. You must be old, Barry. That would have been the old circuit, before Energol was put in, surely.

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[buddyt]

I don't know if Keir or ZippyD towed the formula vee down to V I R (Virginia international raceway}. It was a track outside of Danville that was basicly cut out of a corn field. Many times in late summer if a car went off it disappered into the corn or if it came back on track it would be dragging stalks of corn. In this part of Virginia we have uses for corn other than eating, it makes a good drink.

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"Speed cost money, how fast do you want to go?"

[Keir]

Sorry BuddyT,
Just the upper North-East.
VIR does sound like an interesting track.

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"I Was Born Ready"

[SalutGilles]

I'm not terribly old, so this story is lacking detail, but nontheless true.

Back in the late 70's/early 80's a rally team had trouble getting the fuel filler open.

In that time period, is was popular to bang on the cars as they drove past.

turns out, a finger was jammed in the fuel cap...

[CVAndrw]

Originally posted by SalutGilles:
turns out, a finger was jammed in the fuel cap...

Okay, I hereby move this thread be closed. NO ONE is going to top that. (If anyone does, it'll make me throw up!)

[Barry Lake]

Ray
Sorry, I had missed your truck story.
In the 1980s I was track testing a car for Modern MOTOR magazine and came over the Dogleg to be confronted by the old Holden farm ute!
The driver was the young caretaker (or his assistant) who had decided to go out and pick up the padding from the concrete walls from the previous weekend's motorcycle race meeting. And the reverse direction was the obvious way to go, wasn't it?
He was easier to miss than the new-on-the-job advertising salesman for the magazine who came out with us one day because he'd never been to a race circuit.
He grabbed a car and decided to do a lap - in the wrong direction - while I was doing hot laps in a Holden (Isuzu) Piazza.
These things used to get massive weight transfer in emergency braking situations and lock up the rear wheels.
I was exiting Energol corner at ten-tenths, about to brush the wall on the right, when he appeared in my vision, coming at me head-on.
I was too committed to tighten my line, wasn't game to try the brakes and had the wall on my right.
Fortunately his survival instinct kicked in and he swung to his right, giving me just enough room to squeeze between him and the wall.
That one was certain death, I can tell you.
We never took him to the circuit again.