MY wife has a co worker that is an spec miata driver that was injured in a chrash at Road atlanta and I was woundering if anyone could provide me some more detials for her as he is a friend of hers, he is still in the hosptile here in Raleigh now, which is good, IM if you know anything.

Thanks!

 

http://forum.improvedtouring.c....html

BSF, very, very scarry stuff. I don't think there are any additional details on condition but it does read (on SM.com) that he will be OK. RacerBowie was there, I just emailed him about this thread but I don't know if he has any additional information since leaving the track ??


Modified by phat-S at 8:54 AM 7/30/2004

 

Thanks Adam, I passed the info along to my wife.... not sure if this is going to help my racing aspirations....

 

He crashed in turn 5. i guess he looped it around and smacked the inside wall. the bad part was the car hit square against the wall, so no part of the car crumpled to absorb any impact. the force of the impact actually twisted the chassis (the tranny tunnel was a mess), popped the roof off the car, windshield came out, ect.

the driver was wearing the g-force H&N restraint. im not sure if that kept him alive or not, but he had a basiler skull fracture, who knows if an isaac or hans would have helped out more but it just shows how important it is to have some sort of protection for your neck.

 

Perhaps there are going to be some good lessons from this, I sure hope there are. My understanding is there was a strapping H&N restraint that was used but this was a lateral impact and not certain it did anything to prevent the BSF. This was unique (talking to G. Baker at Isaac Direct) that this is a situation where the forces were strong enough to cause a BSF but not exceed that (ergo. not enough to damage the soft tissue). Typically the amount of additional force required to damage to any amount of soft tissue is very little beyond this point so in a sense, this was an incredibly lucky outcome considering the possibilities. That's way more than I am educated to say so I'll bow out now but that's my understanding fwiw.

All the more reason I want an interior net in the car going forward in addition to (I already wear an Isaac device and have absolutely ZERO intention to cease to) a H&N restraint - be it an overreaction to my own impact or not.

 

Most of what I know can also be gleaned from the internet forums, but:

He impacted in 5. Several other cars wrecked in that area of the track, but I don't know if it was part of the same bigger wreck.

His helmet slid down and broke his nose. there were also reports of glass cutting him, but that is unconfirmed. He had a basilar skull fracture, and possibly a broken rib or two.

He was lifeflighted, supposedly as a precautionary measure, as he was "stabilized at the track"

It was kept pretty much on the DL at the track, we were just told that there would be a "lengthy delay" but our group (next to go out) still got our race in that afternoon.

Sorry I don't know more.

Bowie

 

Thanks Guys for all the info I have passed it on to my wife and her co-workers who know Don.