ltc

Video:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=JrZZkhL6pyg&feature=bz303

Story
http://canadianpress.google.com/arti...OKD625PNg3VD3g

SAO PAULO, Brazil - Brazilian stock car racer Rafael Sperafico was killed in an accident Sunday during the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.

The 26-year-old lost control of his car on the sixth lap, slamming into the tire wall and bouncing back on to the track. His car was then struck by the car driven by Rentao Russo, who was in serious, but stable condition with head injuries.

Sperafico died from massive head injuries followed by cardiac-respiratory failure, Dr. Dino Altman said in an interview on television.

The accident occurred on the same stretch of the Interlagos track where Formula One drivers Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber were involved in an accident during the 2004 Brazilian Grand Prix.

gbaker

Very sad. RIP.

sjanes

Reminds me of Tom Kristensen's accident earlier this year in DTM, only Tom's hit wasn't as direct. RIP.

K964

RIP

Crazy Canuck

RIP

cosmo

RIP

Mikelly

Godspeed....

Cory M

That was a horrific accident.

RIP

cmoss

RIP

I was really amazed at the intrusion into the cage. Gives sad food for thought.

95m3racer

Damn, quite an impact. RIP.

There are some home videos of the wreck. http://youtube.com/watch?v=hlN_NBFtwE8&feature=related

This is the chassis, not exactly a great crash structure imo. They would greatly benefit from some a side impact system.




Another video, shows the chassis after

http://youtube.com/watch?v=CMNsSwn277c&feature=related

Matt Marks

Looks like hitting the tires spit him back into traffic - whereas if he had hit concrete wall he would have slid mostly parallel likely meaning that the hit from the second car would have been much less damaging to the driver compartment. Softwalls would have worked better?

Safety measures giveth - and sometimes taketh away.

Godspeed

chancecasey

RIP.

The only odd thing I see about that cage/chassis is the bar going from about mid-height on the main hoop and extending forward and up. Other than that the side impact protection doesn't look any worse than what you usually see in cars we race. Is there a diagonal in main hoop? I can't tell from the picture. Wondering if his head impacted that bar I'm talking about.

Tom W

Does anthing written talk about a HANS? Looking at the video of him in the car and the helmet being picked up, I couldn't see any HANS mounting.

sjanes

Probably wouldn't have helped anyway considering the impact was a T-bone.

95m3racer

If you watch those youtube vids, they actually show a guy in a car, looks like he's unconscious and his neck is definitely not in a "normal" position. But they also show the announcer sitting in the car and the bar is like 1" away from his head. I almost gauruntee he his his head on that bar.

You have to remember, this is not a "cage" inside a unibody, that IS the chassis. The structural rigidity of the center of the cage has a huge weak point....you can almost see from the side view that it looks like two halves put together.

Considering this thing is powered by a V8, I'd think it would be a bit more beefy. Its not even that light of a car for being tube frame, so I'm wondering how old the design is. Even if you compare it to the current nascar chassis, it has substantially less driver protection.