spiller

It's easy for me to say as i'm not in your situation but you've got nothing to be ashamed about. Just another example of a journalist dragging someone's name through to dirt to generate hits.

P.s. was the other black on red CGT in Europe? I came across pics of an identical looking car in a pic taken in rotterdam the other day.

spg993tt

Roger was a real racer. hed chew up most guys in most series. hes run in WC and had a ton of fun and was always safe, a real dude. paul and him were partners so it seems just a bad loss.
who cares about the car.
45 or 145, it a momentary blink a simple lapse in judgement ora mistake, or a stuck throttle or something...but two real deal car guys (kidn of irrelvant also) lost their lives in a horrible way.

i've had a few powerful street cars. it doesnt take much to catch you out. infact, of all the powerhouse cars i've owned, the CGT if im to be honest, was the most sketchy, the most erratic, the car tht wanted to kill you the most. it would crack its tail loose so quickly. i almost wish porsche would chave changed the engine mapping so that all its power didnt come on in the first few percentages of pedal application. my camaro was like that, you change the bosch engine maps so its not linear at the outset and you crack tires loose far less.

the CGT is marvel car. amazing. but its probably one of the most difficult cars to respect. it is so light, has so much power, and its hard to warm up tires properly.

roger though knows what its like to go out on cold slicks in a WC race, warm them in one lap and go to battle, safely.

i dont take fast cars on the street anymore. and i putt putt around in my tundra pickup and drive like a prude...other than when im in a race car on track.

real shame. prayers to the family. horrible loss.

FlatSix911

RIP

GT9111

RIP. Tragic losses.

WanderingPurist

...

Many here have STRONGLY stated, "there's no way that could have happened (at speeds under triple digits)" and others have gone so far as to call the deceased socially irresponsible, or worse ("idiots" comes to mind)

I wasn't there, I don't know what happened in this case. I was supposed to be there; I know several people who WERE there. And those who where there, and they are well qualified to judge speeds, and WERE THERE, told me the car wasn't going over 45, certainly not 100. They may be wrong. They may be lying.

But I DO KNOW that what is seen on the internet, in pictures, of the aftermath, CAN happen at speeds less than 45mph, if the impact is just right, something (like ruptured fuel tank?) caused a fire, and explosion (I fully realize not all auto fires result in explosions; in fact, most don't. In this case, by most accounts, it did.)

In fact, I KNOW results like these CAN happen at speeds of less than 40mph...to quote, "been there, done that."

I know of instances where a car was going THE POSTED SPEED and due to a broken suspension member or ruptured coolant line or fluid on the road or SOMETHING, went off the road at between 35-40MPH on a 35MPH posted turn, on a dry, sunny, warm day. To quote again, "been there, done that."

In this instance of the CGT, EYEWITNESSES told me they may ("were") on the throttle, and in that spot, not a good idea to be on the throttle (one eyewitness mentioned a pothole or manhole cover, but it was only one) but all were consistent in the estimate of speed - "no more than 45mph." This may or may not be accurate, or even true, but multiple independent EYEWITNESSES have told me this.

You could say that "being on the throttle" through that section of road was negligent or socially irresponsible; I can't argue that. Neither can anyone else, with any foundation, unless you know that particular stretch of road and witnessed the specific circumstances when the incident happened.

Regardless, all the armchair forensic experts here and elsewhere look at the pictures, and write, "there is NO WAY that happened at 45; more like (triple digits)"

And to this all I can write is, "been there, done that. it CAN happen at 45mph; even less than 40mph."

But I had sworn myself to stay out of this, until I read this -

"I refuse to run toward a fire caused by negligent idiots."

"Negligent idiots..." - seriously, I had promised myself I wouldn't comment again in this thread, on this topic, since it seemed those who would conclude what they wanted to conclude was going to conclude that, no matter WHAT anyone else or their experiences or eyes and ears said; it would be an exercise in futility to try to convince them otherwise. And I've already stated I wasn't there, so again, I can only go by my personal experiences in a somewhat similar situation - YES, IT CAN HAPPEN AT 35-40 MPH. BEEN THERE, DONE THAT.

Redleg321 - "negligent idiots...two idiots driving negligently."

I have many friends and family in the various services, including the shadows; some of them have died or been seriously injured in service to their country, some whose memories of those services are carried only by themselves and their brothers in arms. Their nation will never know, nor appreciate, their service. So again, for your service, thank you.

But for your judgemental narrowmindedness, I have to call you on that.

"you don't know the circumstances; and besides, NO ONE deserves this."

Stephen Pitts

WanderingPurist, its a shame that you have such really important and relevant factual information for this post (more than anyone else by far), but you have to envelope it in so much vitriol, obscenity and irrelevant comments directed at other parties. Understand that you are emotionally way closer to this than those writing some of the other posts here, but do you really help make your key points (they were going around 45mph, something happened and they hit the tree sideways on close impact all with no blame to the driver and passenger) better by adding in all that other stuff? Anyhow, others note here that you also can't just "blame the car" (although being a passionate CGT owner, it is everything but forgiving). Well, it could be just one freak accident (act of God), but usually such accidents are from a combination of little things that all line up to go horribly wrong. We'll no doubt find out more in the next few days. Again, very sorry for your loss and the loss of these two; and perhaps its best to respect that by maintaing some modicum of decorum while rightly protecting their reputations from the arm chair goonbas that seem to automatically know everything with absolute certainty (even though its very frustrating sometimes). Cheers, Steve

WanderingPurist

Stephen,

Ironic that you read the vitriol in my post but not the context - no personal attacks were intended, it was a response to really really offensive comments about the deceased to help put those offensive comments into context.

However, this is the world of the internet, and as such, how things are interpreted are often as "real" and important as what the original intentions were.

Your posts have, to my recollection, always been calm and clearheaded, as is your post prompting this reply, so if you read my post this way, I can only imagine how others less so might take it.

Point taken.

Thank you.

ps: at no point do I claim that there is "no blame to the driver and passenger" - even if an "act of God" or stray feral animal or clueless other driver or ped or biker or... wandered into the path of a "sensibly driven car well within legal limits" there may still be some assignment of blame to the driver or owner. As is the case with speeds, not even in the triple digits, but which might have been "unsafe for conditions."

So no, I don't know. but neither do those rushing to conclude the deceased were irresponsible, negligent, or idiots. Which is my only point - please, have a little respect. And realize that such aftermaths of charred and destroyed metal alloys and composites and rubber CAN indeed be the result EVEN AT SPEEDS LESS THAN 45MPH if there is an all engulfing fire, or worse, an explosion.

I completely agree that in most incidents of this type, one cannot simply blame the car - it didn't drive itself, afterall - but even that statement is gratuitious and doesn't mean very much.

" (they were going around 45mph, something happened and they hit the tree sideways on close impact all with no blame to the driver and passenger) better by adding in all that other stuff? Anyhow, others note here that you also can't just "blame the car" (although being a passionate CGT owner, it is everything but forgiving). Well, it could be just one freak accident (act of God), but usually such accidents are from a combination of little things that all line up to go horribly wrong."

LuckyP

This is all very tragic.

I cant help think that as the engine cradle seems to stil be intact with the bulkhead that there might have been an awful mess up with seatbelts doing more harm than good as the cassette was pulled way when the car broke in two.

Just dreadful...

Certainly makes you think how fragile life is.

ChristianR

so you actually know people that saw the accident, true eye witnesses? everything i have read i cant recall reading there was eye witnesses.

DanL993

IMHO windydog is correct and this needs to be brought up too amongst all the RIPs. They both take personal responsibility...the passenger could, and should, have asked his "friend" to stop and apparently didn't.....but we'll never know. My guess is that we will discover speed way in excess of what could be called "pushing it a bit".

Too bad for their families, for sure, that they were both so irresponsible.

spiller

Surely there would be some CCTV footage of the incident somewhere. I'm sure it will all come out in due course, not that it's any of our business anyway. We aren't the ones employed to speculate.

Quadcammer

wow, why not wait for the facts before making assumptions about how irresponsible they were.

A young man who seemed to truly be a good guy died...your comments are really not necessary.

M. Schneider

+1 . True'r words have never been spoken.

TMc993

I think most of us have done stupid things in powerful cars on public roads. I'd be willing to bet that most of have had that "Oh, ****!" moment when we realized that with 2-3 more MPH, that off camber curve, bump in the middle of a curve, or puddle that was deeper than we thought would have tossed us and our car into a ditch, ravine or stand of trees. Most of us get lucky. Occasionally, bad things happen. It's easy to label others' behavior as stupid or irresponsible, but it's a good idea to "take a long look in a mirror" before we do.

I feel for the families and friends.

DanL993

Quad: Facts are that two young fathers died in a firey crash where speed was a factor.

TMc993: I take personal responsibility every time I take that car out, and they did too.