46 replies to this topic

[Ali_G]

I found this mpeg the other. And I have to say that I was pritty horrified at the sheer destruction of this accident.

But just for a start. Who was this guy Kroznov and who was he driving for at the time. I've scowered the internet info about him and it just shows this video.

Saly from what I have heard he died in this accident.

Weirdly enough I never heard of a person dying in CART back in 96.

Also what did CART do to improve safety.

http://user.tninet.s...es/0714crsh.avi

Niall

[BMW FW22]

hee was driving INDYCART wasn't he?

btw think the Tommy Price and Greg Moore Mpeg are much worst but this is sick to discus..

[Ali_G]

I don't even know which circuit this was.

Plus who was in the car who rammed him up agains't the sidewall.

Niall

[david_martin]

You could start by spelling his name correctly - the driver is Jeff Krosnoff, and the fatal accident to which you are referring occurred on the 14th of July 1996 at the Toronto CART race. He drove a Reynard-Toyota for Arciero-Welles during that season, having raced in Japan for a number of years before that. The other driver involved was Stefan Johansson.

[Ali_G]

dave: I'm only getting this info off the internet.

Niall

[Jerry Lee]

Since we're talking about it, I think it's worth mentioning that a track marshall was kill in this accident as well. Sadly, I can't remember his name. He was hit in the head by Krosnoff's front wheel just before he hit the fence.

[BARnone]

Ali G:

That crash also killed at least one marshall in the crowd and injured spectators.

BARnone.

[twhite]

David--
I also remember that Adrian Fernandez "won" that race--his first--because he hadn't yet stopped for fuel/tires when the race was stopped prematurely. I've never thought much of Adrian after I saw an interview some time later with him referring to himself as a race winner.

[EdwRom]

I was watching this race live and I knew right away that this was a fatal one. The rollbar didn't help at all since the chain-link fence acted as any other soft surface. As you would expect with mud, etc., the rollbar most likely pushed into the fence enough to allow the contact between the Jeff's head and the fence. When I saw the tub lying on the ground at the end of the crash I had that sinking feeling that I latter had as soon as I saw Greg Moore hit the wall at Fontana. I have been at the bedside of several patients at the moment of their death but I still can't avoid that sick feeling in the gut that this crashes cause.

[Rob G]

The track marshall's name was Gary Avrin.

[Nasty McBastard]

fernandez has a 'bad' habit...

he won the race krosnoff was killed AND the race Moore was killed.

not to mentione it was HIS wheel that killed the spectators in the michigan race....which moore won....

stick that on your "font size-32 annd change to wingdings" pipe and smoke it

[molive]

I saw the crash live and I was by the fact that I used to hang out exactly at that corner in Toronto since it was a great spot to watch the race (many passings).

[DEVO]

As I recall the marshall wasn't suppose to be there. Something about being behind the 2nd fence... he was in the middle. I can't remember the whole story I just remember watching it unfold on TV and thinking the worse.

[FredF1]

Yep,

I remember watching that race.
It was a sickening accident.
I was under the impression that Krosnoff's car hit a street lamp and broke in two.

I've had an antipathy to Adrian Fernandez, since then, for the way he was celebrating after his 'win'.
There was wreckage everywhere - Since the field went past the remains of Jeff's car enough times for it to be obvious that he was either very badly injured or dead - Fernandez had no excuse for not toning down his responses after the race. The whole incident left a bad taste in my mouth.

IIR, Jeff Krosnoff was good buddies with Jacques Villeneuve and Eddie Irvine, as they'd all raced together in Japan.


Fred

[lustigson]

The car that launched Krosnof's was Stefan Johansson's. Here's a press release.

[Manson]

They changed the fencing around where the accident occured. It was on the inside of the backstretch, hardly a place where you would expect to see a car get airborne and yes the tub was cut in half by a lamppost. The fencing wasn't strong enough to hold the car in. Similar circumstances to the Villeneuve crash this spring. What has F1 done since to improve safety? Don't jump on CART for this one Niall, it was a freak accident. Jaxs was lucky and knew it.

[lustigson]

If the tub was cut in half the real problem is the strenght of the tubs. Alex Zanardi's tub was cut in half too. However, both were absolutely freak accidents. Tub builders can't possible test the circumstances, I think.

[Jerry Lee]

There was wreckage everywhere - Since the field went past the remains of Jeff's car enough times for it to be obvious that he was either very badly injured or dead...

Actually, I remember the cars being stopped on the track just after turn 1 because the track was blocked. I don't think anybody drove by the wreckage except for a small number.

[FredF1]

I'll take your word for it Jerry.

All I can really remember is the Eurosport announcers going into 'inane cheerful chatter' mode when it happened.
I can still recall all the wreckage everywhere.

Still doesn't excuse Fernandez and his crew whooping it up in the pitlane though.


Fred

[nilbog]

The tub did NOT break in half. From what I've heard, his head hit a pole directly. The only way the car could be improved in light of this accident is to have the cockpit entirely enclosed. Track and fencing design has been improved.

No racecar ever made could have protected Zanardi's legs from that incredible impact.

I don't recall alot of details, but I believe Eddie Irvine, Jeff Krosnoff and the late Roland Ratzenberger (who was killed the day before Senna) shared a car at Le Mans one year.

[Manson]

Krosnoff's crash was bad but Danny Ongais had a really nasty wreck at Indy in the early 80's. He was hanging out what was left of the tub with his legs at most abnormal angles.

[Rediscoveryx]

I think you are being a bit unfair towards Adrian Fernandez, he obviously wasn't aware of how bad the crash was as IIRC the race was stopped pretty much immidiately.

I also remember Fernandez crying his eyes out at Fontana, not feeling the least bit happy after Greg Moore's death, so if he was celebrating I very much doubt that he was aware of Krosnoff's state.


I remember seeing the crash (Krosnoff's) onthe sport news on swedish television, whilst talking to my girlfriend, and since the sound was off on the TV, I never understood that he had died until the next morning. I remeber that I didn't think it looked too bad when it happened, I thought they were just showing yet another "awesome crash" from the states. Unfortunately I was wrong.

[twhite]

AF may not have known the results of the Krosnoff crash immediately afterword but he certainly knew at the next race when he was interviewed and referred to himself as a race winner. Sorry, that is awfully slimy.

[vapaokie]

This is a terrible memory. I liked Krosnoff when he was racing. I had forgotten this was when he was killed, until I looked it up a couple of months age. What stuck out in my mind is that I remember the Sportscenter report that day saying the marshall was decapitated, I think he was leaning out over the track waving a flag for a previous incident further up the track. I just read the news about Blaise Alexander, I'm stunned. Another up and coming driver I liked. I can't believe he wasn't wearing a HANS or Hutchins (sp?) device after all that has happened recently.

I just read that press release lustigson linked to , I didn't realize that was the same year Scotty Brayton was killed at Indy. Everytime I'm at the track I can't help but look at the wall in turn 1 where he hit and remember that crash. I've lost just too many drivers (Kulwicki, Moroso, Allison, Bonnett, Petty, Senna, Albereto, Moore, Krosnoff, Brayton, Gobrecht, and now Alexander) I liked in incidents on and off the track in the last 10 years. God this sport can be cruel.

[Pete Stanley]

Toronto '96.

It was a restart off of a yellow flag. I think there were about three laps left. Fernandez was trying to stretch the fuel like he's so good at doing. His Tasman teammate Ribiero was near the front, too.

Krosnoff and Johansson were back in the pack, fighting for 16th place or something like that. They touched wheels and Krosnoff went flying into a marshall's station, and then into the fence. The AP report said Krosnoff's car hit a lamp post, but I've seen two eyewitness reports that JK in fact hit a tree.

There was a fence there, but it was old, and there were some gaps in it. No one anticipated an accident along that straight.

There was a track marshall, Gary Avrin, who was killed in the accident. A lady marshall working next to him escaped with some lacerations - the car scraped her head. I don't remember her name.

ABC was showing the battle for the lead when the accident happened. Then they suddenly cut to the straight. There was debris everywhere, and a few cars sliding into the runoff, including Johansson, Eddie Lawson, and Emerson Fittipaldi. I thought there had been just a big, multi-car schemozzle.

Then one of the commentators, Danny Sullivan, picked up on it instantly. He said "Whose is that? He had seen a part of Krosnoff's drivetrain rolling into the runoff area with Fittipaldi's car.

They showed the back straight again, and I suddenly got this spooky, horrible feeling that all that wreckage on the straight was from ONE CAR. Then they showed the replay, and I saw immediately that a corner marshall had been struck, too.

They must have red-flagged the race immediately. The cars stopped on the track. They did not drive through the debris. Zanardi got out and hugged Fernandez, while Fernandez was still standing in his cockpit. Nobody had any idea what had just happened. The only driver who drove through was de Ferran. He had had some sort of problem, and was catching up to the field when the green flag flew.

Molstar chose not to show the replay on the big-screen TVs across from the pit lane. Very few spectators knew why the red flag came out. All anybody knew was that the race was over and Fernandez won. I'm sure his pitcrew had no idea when they were celebrating.

Fernandez was out front when the red flag flew. The race ended, he was in first place. He won. If some of you cannot accept that, too bad.

Nilbog - you are partially correct. Ratzenberger was scheduled to race at Le Mans, but he had already died at Imola. The 2nd place car at Le Mans in '94 was Irvine, Krosnoff, and Mauro Martini. They kept Ratzenberger's name on the car.

Lawson was greatly upset by the Toronto accident, and it's part of the reason he doesn't race anymore.

Fittipaldi had his career-ending accident the following week at Michigan. On the first lap, he and Greg Moore bumped wheels, and Fittipaldi had a tremendous impact with the wall, breaking his neck.

Racing really sucks sometimes. If you want to follow a sport that's more humane, try tennis.

[Williams]

Originally posted by twhite
AF may not have known the results of the Krosnoff crash immediately afterword but he certainly knew at the next race when he was interviewed and referred to himself as a race winner. Sorry, that is awfully slimy.

I can understand why a person might have a sort of a knee-jerk reaction and criticize a driver for claiming a win in those circumstances. But Fernandez won the race, irrespective of the accident, and remember: he risked his life, just like every other driver, in order to do it. Given that difference between participating in a motor racing and, say, playing checkers, I'd say Ferndandez had every right to claim his win.

Good post Pete.

[Slyder]

Bashing Fernandez for celebrating his first win whilst not knowing about Krosnoffs death until after a race is like bashing Michael Waltrips win at the Daytona 500 unbeknownst of Dale Earnhardts death.

He deserved that win and I was happy for him, but he didn't know Krosnoff was dead. And did you even see AF's face in the interview, he was as glum and down for what had happened. So, he's a race winner, well he was wasn't he. What are they going to do, take the win away from him? Bollocks.

[Earthling]

Is it just me or is that video clip not working anymore?

[Mr Melvin]

No, i can't get it up either.

[FEV]

It should be add that this tragic accident was "caused" by Emerson Fittipaldi's car. He just had suffered a mechanical problem and was running slowly on the straight. Little Leaf and poor Krosnoff were in a big fight for most of the race, with Johansson in front of Jeff. Stefan arrived on Emmo's slowing down car without seing it (this straight as you may know has a an ultra-fast curve), made a rapid movement on the right to avoid collision. Krosnoff tried to do the same but there was no room for three and up he went - very similar to Gilles Villeneuve's crash.
Max Papis took Krosnoff place at Arciero-Wells which started his CART career.

[Ali_G]

I posted a new link.

SHould be working again.

Niall

[The First MH]

I remeber the race as I was in Toronto when it happened. I used to drive by that spot everyday to get to and from work, and can confirm that it was actually a tree that Krosnoff hit. You can actually see the tree in the video if you look carefully. I remember driving by the tree for months afterward and seeing the huge dent in it, which was also covered with flowers for some time afterward. I also remeber that when Christian De Matta won his first race (can not remeber which it was) he dedicated the win to his long lost friend and team mate Jeff Krosnoff. I thought that was nice as it was some two or three years later:up:

[MattPete]

One of my buddies on another board went through the Jim Russell formula series with Jeff Krosnoff (I belive others from that graduating class include Tommy Kendall and Johnny O'Connell).

Here's a link to the Jeff Krosnoff memorial scholarship fund and golf tournament:

http://www.krosnoffscholarship.com/


Check out some of the contributors to the fund. I bet you recognize a ton of them:

http://www.krosnoffs...entsponsors.htm

[HSV]

Yeah I remember watching this race on SKYTV in New Zealand. After viewing this avi again I can't believe how destroyed his car was!

But the worst crash has to be Greg Moore's at Fontana. I only seen a small glimpse on the sports news but it made me feel sick immediately.

Btw does anybody know where I can view a clip of Greg's accident. I just want to see it one more time...

And yeah I agree with Manson. That crash at Melbourne this year was eerily similar to Krosnoff's crash (marshall killed and JV's car disentegrating along the wall). Freaky!

It just goes to show that any open wheel racing is gonna be inherently dangerous when there are exposed wheels involved.

Oh well on that sombre note I'm off to watch the pole shoot out at Bathurst. GO HOLDEN!!

[Rahalnut]

Originally posted by Mr Melvin
No, i can't get it up either.

You might want to rephrase that.

[Rediscoveryx]

HSV:

I think FEV was reffering to Gilles Villeneuve's crash which in turn was eerily similar to that of Jacques in Melbourne this year.

Gilles crash is also one of those that make you feel numb when watching it - but, for me, nothing could possibly be worse than the Tom Pryce tragedy at Kyalami:(

[Oh2bSenna]

Good point Williams, remember the line in Grand Prix when the reporter asked what he did when he saw a bad crash " I keep my foot in it because I know the others are lifting". Remember that racers are the most self centered people in the world. For those of us who have raced be it club level or pro, who amongst us has not whacked open the throttle when some fool high sided in front of you. It sounds cold but that's one less person you have to pass.
People die it is part of our sport and what separates us from stick and ball sports.

[Williams]

Originally posted by Oh2bSenna
Good point Williams, remember the line in Grand Prix when the reporter asked what he did when he saw a bad crash " I keep my foot in it because I know the others are lifting".

I remember that line from Grand Prix as well, and interestingly, according to Richard Williams' "Death of Ayrton Senna", it was originally spoken by Phil Hill, who said, "What did it do to me ? Nothing. Do I sound callous ? I used to go to pieces. I'd see an accident like that and feel so weak inside that I wanted to quit, to stop the car and get out. I could hardly make myself go past it. But I'm older now. When I see something horrible, I put my foot down, because I know everyone else is lifting his." As I recall, nearly the entire quote was lifted almost word for word and put into the movie.

[DEVO]

I dont remember Fernandez celebrating... I also don't remember cars going by either... they were all forced to stop prior to the corner where the accident took place. When Fernandez was told that he was the race leader he still didn't know the extent of the accident. So rinse with mouthwash ok.

[Pete Stanley]

Just a few more words about Krosnoff

He was an American from La Cagnada, California. He started in racing in the mid-80s, doing some Formula Atlantic West and some SCCA stuff. Then he went to Japan, and raced there for a long time. At his first formula nippon test at Suzuka he set a lap time that would have put him on the grid for that year's GP!

Unlike most Western drivers, he didn't stay in a hotel. He stayed at the home of his Japanese team owner (or maybe it was manager). He absorbed alot of the culture, and spoke pretty good, if not fluent, Japanese. Krosnoff was also involved in some sportscar racing. He became good friends with other drivers there, most especially Eddie Irvine and Roland Ratzenberger.

Krosnoff never recieved much attention, for whatever reason. There was some interest after the second place at Le Mans, though. RACER magazine ran an article "Who Is This Man?", and called him "America's most unsuccessful successful racing driver."

But the staff at RACER already knew him. He had been writing short articles for another one of their publications for years. Shortly after his death, RACER reprinted some of those articles - they are very good, and funny, too. In one of the last ones he says he was starting to realize maybe he'll never make it to the level he imagined "as a snot-nosed youngster." But then Arciero-Wells called him, and he tested for them. He wrote, "I am now an IndyCar driver. Way Cool!"

He had no success in IndyCars, due to the boat anchor Toyota engines. Arciero-wells was a pretty underfunded outfit, too. They got the MCI sponsorship about halfway into the season.

I got his signature at Nazareth in '96.

http://www.speedcent...noff/index.html

[dirtyboy]

As bad as that crash was I think Greg Moore's was much worse. Greg was a great young driver.

[KenC]

Some very good posts, particularly Pete Stanley's.

Jeff was an incredibly promising young American driver. As pointed out by Pete and others, Jeff spent years in Japan working towards his goal of F1. Unlike most drivers who aren't well educated, Jeff was articulate, thoughtful and learned. Really the type of guy you would love to represent your sport. If you met Jeff, you immediately rooted for him. I was extremely saddened by his death.

People often mention the lack of quality American drivers in CART, and the lack of an American in F1, I really thought Jeff would be the guy who filled that void.

In open-wheel racing, whether it is F1 or CART, when a trailing car's front wheel runs over another car's rear wheel, the trailing car is launched in the air, as Jeff's was, over Johansson's car. There were gaps in the fencing, around a marshal station. O, if it hadn't been mentioned this was Toronto's fastest section of the track, and is still used today. As already mentioned Jeff's car hit a large tree overlooking the track. The tub did not break, but the engine separated from the tub.

One result was of course, the fencing on temporary circuits was upgraded.

Did Adrian celebrate? I suppose he did, as the podium celebration is on the IMAX SuperSpeedway DVD/video that is available. In fact, Bobby Rahal spays Adrian with champagne. I wouldn't blame Adrian, as it's pretty clear he didn't know.

The speedcenter site had a very nice tribute to Jeff, and as has been noted, there is a Krosnoff charity that gives a $10000 college scholarship to a deserving student. There's also a charity golf tourney to raise funds for the Krosnoff charity around the time of the Laguna Seca race, which is coming up soon.

[Bjorn]

Sickening... I was on this music and movie sharing thing called Morpheus, and did a search for 'Formula 1', checked 'Video'. Wanted to see if there were any interesting clips to be found. The first search result was 'Indy Car Wreck', category: Comedy... I thought that was a bit strange since I had searched for Formula 1, why did it return a file called 'Indy Car Wreck'? Moved my mouse over the file for a further description..

Title: Indy Car Wreck
[...]
Category: Comedy
[...]
Description:1996 Molson Indy Toronto, Driver Jeff Krosnof of Arcerio-Wells Racing is killed in a violent crash with Stefan Johannsen.
Keywords: racing, CART, f1, formula 1

Sickening

[Rediscoveryx]

Yes, that is well and truly sick...

[Ali_G]

Could anyone here try to get a video of Moore Fontana 99.

I have seen the crash but i don't remember it very well.

in fact I remember more of Gugelmins crash at the time.

Niall

[lustigson]

I have the video of Greg Moore's crash stored on my laptop, but I'm not entirely sure how to get it up here. I haven't got it no me right now, either.

[lustigson]

By the way, I got it from another post here, so it should still be here.