The driver of the #39 Volvo has died at Thunderhill after a head-on collision with the wall.
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wtf :sad
that’s so sad.
thats terrible. i always wanted to enter in that event one of these days too. :sad
You can get killed stepping out of your car just as easily as at one of these events. Don’t let it stop you from entering. Lemons series is probably one of the safest forms of racing around as they heavily regulate what you can do around the tracks.
Sad, wonder how it will affect the series.
wow that sucks, has anyone ever died in one of these before?
lemons or lamans?
LeMons
UPDATE #4: The folks over at Bryan’s Message Board have been chronicling the adventures of “Team Porcubimmer” — as such, a few of the forum fan-boys (and girls) were in the stands at Altamont. Here’s one of their recaps of what happened:
he shot forward and sped up right before the turn, and went head on into the wall. didn’t break, didn’t turn…i didn’t see anyone bump him. best guess is that he passed out and his foot just acted like a lead weight… but that’s just based on the fact that he blasted forward so suddenly and made a beeline for the wall…took them forever to get a fucking tarp up. i was up in the stands with my dad, and he was really upset that it took them so long to do that.
Yes, of course it’s speculation — but the rest of the account helps provide more verification for what we’ve been told was seen out at the track.
UPDATE #5: We’ve just received the following e-mail from a team member of the victim of the crash with his name, age and a little bit more detail on what may have happened:
The CHP reported that the car was in working order. No mechanical failure seems to have appeared…the impact was estimated at 50 to 60 MPH…Cort Summerfield was 46 years old (02/01/1961)
My question is this:
How do you die from that in a car with a full cage, seats, harnesses, etc…unless something foreign entered the cabin?
medical records not released yet, but from what V8olvo was saying the car accelerated into the turn straight for the wall and hit about 50-60mph…they’re thinking something happened to him in the car before he crashed ie heart attack, aneurysm, etc, etc. not the actual crash that killed him…
If you hit something hard enough, the greatest cage in the world wont save you.
You can also do the cage real shitty so the welds will break or force will exceed the sheer point on one of the joints. Compound all of that with these are real real old shit boxes in these races. Safety technology back then was a seatbelt and a reinforced bumper support.
A cage will not protect you from concussive injuries or whiplash. Bear in mind, strapped into a 5 point harness your head will snap around like a bobble.
think dale earnhardt…
hans device ftmfw