R.I.P

RIP "Beef"

Do you think Martin will drive in the wrc again as i dont think most people would be able to drive knowing they killed there co-driver and good friend??

Also any pics of the destroyed car on the net anywhere as its interesting to see soon as most big crashes where car is destroyed result in just bruising??

There are (distant and thankfully not particularly clear) pics, but as a matter of respect there's no way I'm going to post them here.

Motorsport is dangerous, and when you consider some of the smashes some drivers have had down the years, it makes it all more remarkable that fatalities have been none existant for such a long time, but it sure hits home when it happens.

This is a truly terrible thing to happen, it goes without saying.

I was impressed with Loebs gesture, that he took the penalty, to make sure he didn't clear the title up, after the withdrawal of Marcus Gronholm.

Yeah.............i don't thing anyone would want to win anything after today's events. That was a great gesture and very tactful.

I'm glad he had the wits to do it.

On a positive note, I caught the highlights on ITV and that indoor stage at the Millennium Stadium looked awesome. I liked the way they had the flame bursts as the driver approached the finish.

Utterly shocked at this, RIP Michael

Oh ****.

This is seriously upsetting me.

I agree with Gav about the pictures. They are not to be posted here IMO.

Of the few I've seen off the WRC footage, the crash could in no way have been softer. The car hit that tree dead on sideways, and the sideways skidmarks are all there. The horrible thing is, the tree that the car hit is only a foot or two from where the wreck of the car lay. The car hit hard, and stopped harder, meaning it was a tremendous impact.

The only positive I can grab is that Francois Duval didn't hit anyone else and create more carnage - very stupid of him not to slow down more as he could well have hit Harri Rovanperä's stopped car!

A bit off topic but still on it, does anyone know what is the current state of Richard Burns? Haven't heard much about him since his diagnosis in '03?

No not much news comes about Richard Burns.

I gather he is still fighting his illness. In some ways no news is good news, but it would probably seem that he will not be making a WRC comeback.

I got the impression a couple of months back that he was making good progress, but it flared up again. It wasn't particularly clear. He'll not step into a WRC car again I doubt.

Quoted from anto-t at TBK:

Christ, that's vicious. One thing is to die in a crash, another is to slowly perish from a crippling and debilitating condition.

A very sad weekend for rallying, here in Finland a young co-driver also died in a very similar crash. He was participating in junior's national championship and was only 19 years old, if I remember correctly.

FIA sure needs to think about what to do to slow down the corner speeds, they're getting too high for the current cars. Surely the cars are safe in crashes happening from front and back, but side impacts are still very dangerous. And when car slips from high speeds in corners, it normally goes sideways to what-ever-there-is and the crashes are very hard.

The current mean(?) speed maximum of a stage is 130 km/h which is fairly high. In Finland they needed to cut some stages to two parts this year, because the mean speeds exceeted the maximum in 2004.
In this case the mean speed wasn't even close to that 130 km/h, but only do junctions.

Corner speeds have risen in last few years due to fast development in tyres and differential etc. In the same time the stages have stayed the same. The stages or the cars need to change radically in order to make rallying safe again.


</end off bulls*it (written very sick, so might be full of typos etc)>

Another co-driver (may have been a driver, hazy memory) died in a rally in Ireland this weekend too I believe.