Hatzenbach

http://www.kerngoldenempire.com/news...w-raceway-park

Does anyone know more?

bobbyho

Text from a friend of mine:

"I was there today. The driver of a E46 BMW lost control and slid sideways into the flag station right before sunset. They were administering CPR to the driver who eventually passed away on the scene. They had to cut away the passenger side door to extract the passenger who was then air lifted away by helicopter."

Edit:
Driver was Ivo Mitkov of Renner Motorsport

audipwr1

I fail to come up with a flag station there you could hit that fast - Phil Hill maybe???

stujelly

I will check the local news tonight

winders

The flag station on the left just before pit in.

Hatzenbach

If my memory serves me right there's one on the right after you come out of Star Mazda and the next is after the Esses on the left before the pit entry. If someone really looses it in the Esses he might hit this flag station.

On second thought missing Phil Hill is probably most likely.

winders

Someone on trackhq.com that was there said the car was sitting next to the corner station just before Sunset. That is two different sources saying that.

Greg Phillips

Overcook the Esses and go off track to driver's right and then try to come back on track and get spun into the left and hit the flag station or berm on driver's left before Sunset.
You are up over 100 if you are doing the Esses well.

Greg

Spyerx

This is very sad. I don't know this run group but I know the track well and it's generally very safe.
Skip to 2m you can see the turn called sunset exiting the esses and the corner station on left.


Ignore my average driving.

usctrojanGT3

And this is why I prefer running 13CW instead of 1CW...13CW you carry less speed through the Esses. RIP

winders

They were running 13CW, by the way.

1990nein

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golfnutintib

omg... really sad

series8217

I always thought of Buttonwillow as a pretty safe track; not a lot of fatalities over the existence of the track and there's very little to hit.. But I know one person who was injured and totaled their car from hitting the corner worker station in the esses going CCW, another who flattened the side of their car against the wall coming out of the esses going CW, and I almost crashed into the wall and corner worker station going off out of the esses CW as well.

It's a spot on the track where you might not realize how fast you're going because it's straighter and longer than it feels. I think the braking point before sunset going CW is typically the fastest part of the track for many cars.

I think it's important to be able to openly discuss the events leading up to a big crash so we can all learn from it and be safer drivers. Unfortunately when there's a fatality we don't usually get to see what happened. So we may not know for sure..

If you're not sure how someone can hit the wall or corner worker station coming out of the esses, here's a vid of my off:

I stopped a couple feet short of the wall. Pure luck that I wasn't pointed more left (wall) or more right (corner worker station). I don't remember for sure, but I think I was trying to keep going straight when I went two off at the exit of the esses. Instead the car dragged in the dirt and yawed left. I was along for the ride at that point. Probably better off to explicitly steer 4 off if you run out of track here... you might tumble through the dirt but that's better than hitting a fixed object.

From what I hear, it was a similar off today that resulted in the fatal crash, and the trajectory put the car into the corner worker station. RIP driver and good luck to the passenger in getting past their injuries.

Be careful out there folks...

1990nein

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