Earnhardt in C5-R

[vettemaan]

Man, what a total publicity stunt, I hope he dosent crash. we will see tommarow.

[vettemaan]

Im a freekin Physchic

[vettemaan]

[pro3racer]

I typed a total flame to your first message, then i realized you said i hope he DOESN'T crash, well, where did you find that pic, i've been reading about it all day, hes staying over night at the hostpital now, they said that he'll be fine to race next week in new hampshire though. The race wasn't that exciting though, i usually love the rolex races, but this one lacked some excitment, i liked the GT race though.

[vettemaan]

I didnt see it, I had to work but i hada friend record it for me and i got a really good video of it. pretty damn scary.

[BullShifter]

That video has been all over SPEED channel. I haven't seen a fire like that in a while, pretty scary if your the one strapped in & knocked out. Think he will race ALMS again? I do.

[vettemaan]

most definantly, this will only fuel the fire. no pun intended hehe.

[pro3racer]

he definatly will race at next years rolex, thats for sure. I've been watching the stories on t.v., and i believe it has been blow out of proportion. I mean, sure, it's involves fire, and is a bad wreck, but there have been much worse. I saw another race car driver(either indy car or nascar, couldn't put a name on it), and he said it's the worst wreck hes ever seen, now that bs, just because it's JR, people are going crazy, even ESPN is having a stupid story on it, what the hell, it's racing, i can't remember this much commotion over the geoffry(sp) bodine truck wreck at daytona, or when the Prototyp cars crashed at lime rock(that was a while back)

[kfoote]

Originally Posted by pro3racer

he definatly will race at next years rolex, thats for sure. I've been watching the stories on t.v., and i believe it has been blow out of proportion. I mean, sure, it's involves fire, and is a bad wreck, but there have been much worse. I saw another race car driver(either indy car or nascar, couldn't put a name on it), and he said it's the worst wreck hes ever seen, now that bs, just because it's JR, people are going crazy, even ESPN is having a stupid story on it, what the hell, it's racing, i can't remember this much commotion over the geoffry(sp) bodine truck wreck at daytona, or when the Prototyp cars crashed at lime rock(that was a while back)

The wrecks you mention here actually resulted in some major changes. The Bodine wreck resulted in a roll cage and catch fence redesign, and the GTP cars at Lime Rock resulted in the chicaine at the top of the hill, (known to some as the John Morton chicaine after he had a blowover at the top of the hill and eneded up stopped at the entrance gate for Lime Rock). The dip at Road Atlanta was removed as a result of a couple of incidents with GTP cars and testing problems with CART cars there, and I can come up with several others as well. The big reason why this is so public is because there were a lot of people who wouldn't normally be interested in ALMS that were watching it because of Earnhatdt. It seemed like about 25% of the crowd thee were wearing #8 shirts at teh track last weekend.

[pro3racer]

yeah, i did notice that, i thought the catchfence redesign was first part of a indy crash, but oh well, the same reason they put the two chicanes in a lemans, but what else can they do for ALMS cars, those things are awesome(and almost perfect), other than fixing the concrete barriers, but hey, it's a road course!

[kfoote]

In defense of Sears Point, the place where it happened is a very strange place to go off track. There are a lot of places there that eat cars a lot more frequently than where he went off. IMO, this can be chalked up as a freak accident that there's not much that can be done about.

[BullShifter]

Plus those cars are not designed to absorb impact like a Cup/Busch car. Jr's crash wasn't that bad, I didn't think, more the fire. Those corner workers had no chance against that raging blaze.

[pro3racer]

correct me if i'm wrong, but was the wreck in the "s"s before turn 11??? That is a weird place to wreck, it's usually a easier part. But when the car backs into a wall, fire is probably going to occur.

[BullShifter]

That's correct he did spin in the S's, I beleive it was the first right. Tonight on Wind Tunnel a GM rep was on and said they're looking at a suspension part that broke, puncturing the fuel cell and the floor of car. A broke suspension part could cause something like that.

[Big Pat]

Cold tires will do that too... That incident was not at speed, but in the warm-up lap, wasn't it?