Richard S

Here's a quick update....it's been a long day. In a nutshell, we managed to run the first leg after a late start due to bad weather.

Major accident in the Super Sport class.....second car out, ex-Nascar racer, crashed about 4 miles from the finish line. Driver in serious condition and taken by ambulance to the hospital, navigator in critical condition and airlifted to trauma center. This was after the field had completed the first leg, and the Super Sport cars were the last to run. Tim and Cheryl came to a safe stop one checkpoint before the accident (they were 2 cars behind the accident car). Everybody else is safe, Charlie Friend drove his car (Corvair) through the debris field but made it safely to the finish area....did some damage to his car though.

Other than that, we are safe, Matt and I had a great run and should be very close to our target time. George and Paul did not finish due to the accident, they were the last car out.

Time for the dinner, I'll get some more info and post later.

Rich

Charley B

Sorry to hear about the accident. Was it the M&M's paint scheme?

AO

I'm sure that put a damper on the festivities, but it re-asserts just how dangerous this stuff can be. You guys stay safe!

Bill Ball

Rich:

That is real bad news. Hoping for better news about the crash victims.

Nicole

I'm sorry to hear about the accident, and hope the injured will recover fully! Any ideas what happened?

I'm glad all 928ers are OK and had fun!

Richard S

The accident involved driver Don Pylman and navigator Greg Seid in a 1990 Ford Nascar T-bird, 170mph class. No update on injuries or current condition at the awards dinner, other than what was known at the scene. Car tumbled end over end, both helmets came off after first tumble, back injuries to the driver, and some head trauma to navigator. Both were awake and coherent at the scene, could move finger and toes, etc., so hoping for the best. Don't ask me how the helmets came off, it wasn't explained. Both had HANS devices.

Now to the results......

Matt and I were in the 130mph class with 11 other cars. We scored 129.984mph average, missing our time by 0.285sec. That was good enough for.......THIRD PLACE Fred Wagner placed second in his 993TT with 130.010mph, 0.180sec off perfect time....Fred is ALWAYS tough to beat. First place went to a 95 Corvette ZR1 at 129.998mph, 0.038sec off perfect. In fact it was the overall best time.

Tim and Cheryl, as well as George and Paul, didn't finish due to the accident. It was a loooooong day due to wind, rain, hail, and lightning. But now it's over and everyone is thinking about Don and Greg and wishing for the best....

Goodnight everyone...

Rich

IcemanG17

I hope they recover quickly!!!

Helmets coming off with a HANS device.....thats really odd?

Bill Ball

Rich:

Congrats to you and Matt! 0.38 seconds off is the best I have ever done. You guys did fantastic, especially in the face of all the competition in that speed group.

Did Tim & Cheryl get to run both ways over 200 in the traps? I know they didn't finish the first leg, but I wonder about their traps. Tim mentioned 203.

That's terrible news about Don & Greg and the helmet system failure. The hardware must have snapped under the tremendous force of the end-to-end tumble. The cables are tough, but the fasteners to the helmet always seemed like a potential weak point to me. Anyway, that's just horrible news, but I'm VERY glad to hear they were conscious and moving extremities after the crash. I will look on the MKM board for more news and send them get well wishes.

Tahoe Shark

We went to the Battle Mtn hospital last night to see Don and (according to the nurse) he had been flown to the Reno trauma center. Greg who we thought was the more seriously injured was life flighted to Elko and released later that night for 24 hour observation. As it turns out Don is the more seriously injured. Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family.
It really brings it close to home how fast and dangerous speed is. We had lunch with Don and Greg in Richard Hille's trailer just 30 minutes before the start. I hope they both recover fully.

Bill,
We ran 201 through the first trap and 203 on the second. The traps were only 10 miles apart so we just left the throttle down all the way. We had a 178 mph average before we entered the gap. Unfortunately the entire 160 class was red flagged and our trap times will not count or be recorded. It was the right thing to do though.

Bill Ball

Tim:

Lord, were you guys moving! I certainly understand the red flag, but too bad the traps still couldn't count for the 200MPH club.

Thanks for the good news about Greg! Here's hoping Don comes around quickly too!

edco

Thanks Bill,

Rich and I had a great time, the accident at the end was a real bummer. We had run that turn at 135 just an hour earlier. Watching from the high school we could see a huge dust cloud some 5 miles away! When Charley Friend’s car arrived at the finish we knew it was the #9 Nascar that had a problem. There were some anxious moments while we waited for word from the race director on the south end of the course.

Marsha Borders gave a very emotional update, letting us know they were alive but injured, with Greg requiring a life flight helicopter. Little by little info started to trickle in. I spoke with Mike Borders after the awards banquet and he said he would keep everyone up to date on the MKM forum. We passed the hat for the guys and raised just under $1000 bucks. The MKM “Family” is a wonderful group of people.

Race day was a strange one, we had rain, lighting and thunder, a fire from one of the lighting strikes. A car on the course "not a race car", one of the repeaters for the communication system went down and then just as a big weather system with lighting and rain was moving in from the south Don & Greg's accident.

Rich and I had a good run, we left the starting line at 12:15PM we fought the wind on the top and it limited our speed to a max of 152MPH, we had hit 160+ in practice. I have more video to post but here are the highlights. I had a really great weekend, I’m looking forward to the MKM season next year and perhaps the Nevada Open Road Challenge in May of 08

Bill Ball

Matt:

Nice job. Nice video. You can feel the tension of waiting at the line for the other guys to go and watching the Xmas tree lights move down, then the deliberate take-off making sure the clocks are tripped just right. Nice trip through The Gap. I almost have it memorized, so I anticipated the House Curve and some of the turn combos where you have to stay over and set up for the next turn. Smooth and safe driving. Excellent.

JEC_31

Excellent vids, Matt, thanks for sharing. Good driving too!

jorj7

Congratulations Matt and Rich, Very respectable time, too bad you were in the
same class as the overall winner.. That happened to Paul and I at the Gambler's
Run in July. You even got me in some of the video at the start, sitting in my chair
taking photos. Looks like the road was still wet in the Gap, or was that just overcast?

Tim and Cheryl, Sounds like you had another great run going before the Red Flag.
It's so disappointing when that happens, but you just hope the other guys are alright.

Paul and I were having a good run also. We were 70 seconds ahead when we
got to the Gap (166 mph avg). Average 138 mph through the Gap, and were sitting
at a 159 mph avg when we came out of the Gap. We had slowed to 145 mph to
bleed off some time when we were Red Flagged 20 miles from the finish. I'll post
some photos later today.

Richard S

Matt learns fast and listens to directions. I felt totally safe riding with him, a little bit of coaching during the run to keep him set up in the long curves. I wish we could have spliced the audio from our comm unit into the camera as well so you could hear how calm it really is talking to each other. We had a strategy mapped out the night before the event, and planned to zero out both legs. Some teams want to bank time on the first leg and take it easy on the shorter leg, but if the race is interrupted then the first leg is scored and the time-bankers are screwed. We planned to run the Gap at 110mph, which is actually a bit slow. But this was Matt's first time and we played it conservative. Actually, I had to slow him down thru the Gap, must have been hard for him to stay off the gas

The wind played a big part during our run. We could only hit 150 thru the speed traps. Once we approached the Gap the wind died down and it was easier for the remainder of the leg. Our return plan had us averaging 140mph up to the Gap, which may have been a little tough to do that day.....but then again, we could have taken the Gap faster than 110mph if 140mph on the first leg wasn't do-able

We picked the right speed class for the car, despite the stiff competition. Averaging 140+mph for the entire run would have been difficult due to the weather. 130mph was just right Good job Matt!

Rich