MikeJim

“If that truck would have been another second behind," Graham Rahal told SPEED.com, "I’d have been underneath him and I’d probably be dead.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=sHuIb2e5Nh0

A closer view....

Veloce Raptor

WOW. WTF?????? Chief Steward & Starter need to find another job.

early_grayce

^^+1

wow. How did that happen???

gums

Holy Crap! pretty amateurish. Which, I thought, the whole event was, including the TV coverage.

mdrums

Yep watched that on tv... Didn't know what to think

jcs_911

The truck was going counter-race, and they started the event? Someone missed the boat on that one.

Scootin159

Having worked with them - I'm honestly surprised it hasn't happened until now. I nearly saw the same thing happen on the back straight of the Glen last year - twice. The IRL traveling safety team has 'underimpressed' on many occasions.

My993C2

Definitely could have been bad ... someone messed up.

Speaking of dangerous Safety Cars, this incident is only a couple of years old:

Veloce Raptor

IMO it's not the safety team which is ultimately at fauult (although that they'd be running counter race when the field is about to take the start is utterly retarded). it's race control that should have seen this and dealt with it.

BC

A pickup truck against an IRL car? Jayzus. Probably due to too many cooks in the kitchen.

Scootin159

Race control can only work with the information (or lack there-of) given to them . I must be mindful of my words here, but I can say that before a course goes hot race control will ALWAYS ask for an all-clear from each corner (basically a slew of "station 1 clear", "station 2 clear", etc). Doesn't matter if it's an F1 GP or a PCA HPDE - they ask it every time. Once you give that all clear - you best make sure you STAY clear, as your corner is officially hot, even if the green hasn't flown yet. If you need to enter the track after that call, you need to go through the normal procedure to enter a hot track.

However, let's just say that the unibody nature of a certain Honda truck must create a little Faraday cage, because it seems that radios don't work very well from inside them. Some calls don't seem to make it in, and many calls don't seem to make it out.

gums

This one is classic, too, but I also remember a driver out of his F1 car getting hit once.....

Veloce Raptor

IRL race control uses dozens & dozens of cameras all over th ecourse. In fact,k the TV coverage of the race showed the room race control was in. So that is no excuse: regardless of what was said on the radio, the closed circuit TV feeds would have showed race control that there was a pickup truck driving coounter race at start/finish.

Duh.

Flying Finn

Interesting, and every friggin' race you hear the announcers praising them how they are "the best in the World" for at least 10 times...

That really was a close call... Damn, real screw up. And even the other truck (that backed into it's position) wasn't that far.

The Heidfeld incident is classic indeed!

Mahler9th

Yikes that looks ugly.

People make mistakes.

Hopefully no one gets hurt and there isn't any property damage. And hopefully policies, practices and procedures are updated and/or rehearsed accordingly.

People hit safety vehicles on track and off track. I have been at events where this has occurred.

Race control- to-track communications can sometimes be compromised and/or misunderstood or misinterpreted. Like tow truck drivers driving counter-course despite being told to drive in the normal direction.

Drivers miss flags. Flag workers make mistakes (like the waving green in the Heidfeld video-- looks like an error perhaps). Or flag workers wearing red sweatshirts or carrying red umbrellas...

This could have been really ugly.