TBK-Light.com :: The 94th Indianapolis 500

Terrible crash. Obviously Conway was lucky he didn't go into the fence head first, RHR was lucky the Conway's car didn't take his head off, but also Helio almost took a radiator to the head. Three lucky guys...

The spring which Massa hit was "just over 1lb", which was around 500g.

ellis wrote:

The spring which Massa hit was "just over 1lb", which was around 500g.

Oh, well then, that makes probably the radiator's weight less significant.

Ok so I'm back at the hotel.
I was listening to Brian Barnhart for the vast majority of the race. There were specific instructions given to drivers in the drivers meeting that they were to remain on the right half of the track unless they were passing. Warnings were given before black flags, which is how I pretty much knew Graham was getting a black flag because of him running on the left half earlier on in the race.

The accident was caused by the slowing down car of Huter-Reay as he ran out of fuel... but he was not alone; Franchitti, Lloyd and Marco have also been reported to be running on fumes; there are most probably many others.

I wonder how they will prevent this kind of incident in the future. I guess it could be pretty easily done by introducing a minimum end-of-race fuel amount that must be within the tank of each car.

I feel that whetever the whys and the wherefores.. yesterday we could have had a triple fatality at Indy, and we should be greatful that we didnt... along with the Lambo and AUDI crashes last weekend we have been very luck not to add to the death toll this year!

Eddington mains wrote:

My thought's exactly. We've seen lot of hard crashes lately and it's really down to luck that those haven't been fatal.

Eddington mains wrote:

If you think further about this possible tripple fatality... and it WAS passible... the wreck could have killed several spectators, too. At that point we would talk about an accident you could easyly mention in one sentence with le mans 55... and all its consequences.
This would have possibly been the end of indycar racing, at least as we know it. I could even imagine several countris ban oval racing or motorracing entirely.

You can flame and argue, that his would have never happended. But after watching that several times and think about what would have been wen Conway flipped different, when RHR catched the gearbox and helio the water tank... I think this could have been the case. We were pretty close to a fatality for our whole sport.

Compound fracture to the lower back for Conway.

Anyone have a g number for Conway's impact?

It's got to rival Brack, surely.

ellis wrote:

Compound fracture to the lower back for Conway.

Compression fracture [/pedantic]

If he'd had a compound fracture of his back, he'd be in a hell of a mess

Author:	NVirkkula [ Mon May 31, 2010 3:46 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: The 94th Indianapolis 500
Boxy Brown wrote: Terrible crash. Obviously Conway was lucky he didn't go into the fence head first, RHR was lucky the Conway's car didn't take his head off, but also Helio almost took a radiator to the head. Three lucky guys... Imagine if a spring, weighting just 200 grams was able to cause life threatening injuries at 230km/h hour crash. Helio was doing probably faster and that radiator weights twice as much. And it just missed Helio by inches. Very lucky, as was Conway and Hunter-Reay who was facing a whole damn car at those speeds. This kind of accidents actually makes you wonder few things - will IndyCar Series run out of luck someday? We've seen crashes like this so many times during the last 7 years. The second question is that how big impact those cars can take? Kanaan walked away last year with over 200G crash, Conway is miraculously alive as is Briscoe and Bräck after their accidents. So are Franchitti, Mario, Marco, Hornish and Buddy Rice. Tony Renna wasn't so fortunate, but there were speculations that hitting a bird had him killed before the big hit on the fencing. Paul Dana's crash wasn't involving airborne, but was very unfortunate never the less. I think the safety of those cars have improved within the past few years a lot, but there's also a huge amount of luck involved everytime. Yesterday it could all have ended in big tears with three drivers barely escaping the serious injuries. The final big question is what will happen if the worst case scenario will come true during a race? There was no footage of Renna's crash at all, thankfully and only few badly focused views of Dana's crash. Dana's crash was widely considered as unfortunate rookie mistake, but if this kind of incident would happen to a proven driver like it happened in the past for Moore or Senna, it could set this sports in to a turmoil. It has been said many times before, but I hope the new lead of the series would take a reality check now and do something to the cars before we lose someone again. I don't know the answer but they need to make those cars to stick to the ground and fast.

Author:	ellis [ Mon May 31, 2010 4:01 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: The 94th Indianapolis 500
The spring which Massa hit was "just over 1lb", which was around 500g.

Author:	Cheeveer [ Mon May 31, 2010 4:02 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: The 94th Indianapolis 500
The crash yesterday could of happened anytime since the 70's, and it has before. It's not because of the times. Not really necessary to stop everything for a reality check.

Author:	NVirkkula [ Mon May 31, 2010 4:05 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: The 94th Indianapolis 500
ellis wrote: The spring which Massa hit was "just over 1lb", which was around 500g. Oh, well then, that makes probably the radiator's weight less significant.

Author:	ellis [ Mon May 31, 2010 4:11 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: The 94th Indianapolis 500
NVirkkula wrote: ellis wrote: The spring which Massa hit was "just over 1lb", which was around 500g. Oh, well then, that makes probably the radiator's weight less significant. Well it was still a potentially fatal accident, your points definitely right. Just saying the spring was a little heavier.

TBK-Light.com https://www.tbk-light.com/phpBB3/

The 94th Indianapolis 500 https://www.tbk-light.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=5455	Page 73 of 76

Author:	Michael R. [ Mon May 31, 2010 4:31 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: The 94th Indianapolis 500
AutoRacer5 wrote: Ok so I'm back at the hotel. I was listening to Brian Barnhart for the vast majority of the race. There were specific instructions given to drivers in the drivers meeting that they were to remain on the right half of the track unless they were passing. Warnings were given before black flags, which is how I pretty much knew Graham was getting a black flag because of him running on the left half earlier on in the race. This would've been nice to know during the race, some of the calls for blocking seemed a bit of a stretch. BTW, there are higher def pics here: http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topi ... w-bad.html

Author:	nickthemassacre [ Mon May 31, 2010 4:43 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: The 94th Indianapolis 500
i was sitting in turn 3 and saw the whole thing happen. it happened so fast it was unbelievable. it scared the shit of me. I didn't think he was going to get of the car at all after an impact like that. but overall it was a good race. too many cautions and wayyy too hot.

Author:	Coyotekart1 [ Mon May 31, 2010 5:36 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: The 94th Indianapolis 500
Raikkon wrote: The accident was caused by the slowing down car of Huter-Reay as he ran out of fuel... but he was not alone; Franchitti, Lloyd and Marco have also been reported to be running on fumes; there are most probably many others. I wonder how they will prevent this kind of incident in the future. I guess it could be pretty easily done by introducing a minimum end-of-race fuel amount that must be within the tank of each car. Im sorry but that idea of a minimum amount of fuel at the end of the race is dumb. They already have a minimum weight requirement. These accidents have happend before in the middle of a fuel run, its just part of it.

Author:	Eddington mains [ Mon May 31, 2010 6:06 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: The 94th Indianapolis 500
I feel that whetever the whys and the wherefores.. yesterday we could have had a triple fatality at Indy, and we should be greatful that we didnt... along with the Lambo and AUDI crashes last weekend we have been very luck not to add to the death toll this year!

Author:	Beezle [ Mon May 31, 2010 6:25 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: The 94th Indianapolis 500
Eddington mains wrote: I feel that whetever the whys and the wherefores.. yesterday we could have had a triple fatality at Indy, and we should be greatful that we didnt... along with the Lambo and AUDI crashes last weekend we have been very luck not to add to the death toll this year! ...which is already long enough...

Author:	NVirkkula [ Mon May 31, 2010 6:32 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: The 94th Indianapolis 500
Eddington mains wrote: I feel that whetever the whys and the wherefores.. yesterday we could have had a triple fatality at Indy, and we should be greatful that we didnt... along with the Lambo and AUDI crashes last weekend we have been very luck not to add to the death toll this year! My thought's exactly. We've seen lot of hard crashes lately and it's really down to luck that those haven't been fatal.

Author:	Beezle [ Mon May 31, 2010 6:55 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: The 94th Indianapolis 500
Eddington mains wrote: I feel that whetever the whys and the wherefores.. yesterday we could have had a triple fatality at Indy, and we should be greatful that we didnt... along with the Lambo and AUDI crashes last weekend we have been very luck not to add to the death toll this year! If you think further about this possible tripple fatality... and it WAS passible... the wreck could have killed several spectators, too. At that point we would talk about an accident you could easyly mention in one sentence with le mans 55... and all its consequences. This would have possibly been the end of indycar racing, at least as we know it. I could even imagine several countris ban oval racing or motorracing entirely. You can flame and argue, that his would have never happended. But after watching that several times and think about what would have been wen Conway flipped different, when RHR catched the gearbox and helio the water tank... I think this could have been the case. We were pretty close to a fatality for our whole sport.

Author:	aerogi [ Mon May 31, 2010 6:59 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: The 94th Indianapolis 500
NVirkkula wrote: Eddington mains wrote: I feel that whetever the whys and the wherefores.. yesterday we could have had a triple fatality at Indy, and we should be greatful that we didnt... along with the Lambo and AUDI crashes last weekend we have been very luck not to add to the death toll this year! My thought's exactly. We've seen lot of hard crashes lately and it's really down to luck that those haven't been fatal. well cars are more and more safe these days. But you have a point. I remember very well the Imola weekend back in 1994. Rubens got a very hard crash just the day before, if you look at the pictures that one could have ended much much worse as well. I have newspapers from saturday (about the friday) how safe etc etc racing has become, there had been bad crashes but in most cases drivers walked away. It was a brutal awakening a few days later...

Author:	ellis [ Mon May 31, 2010 7:22 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: The 94th Indianapolis 500
Compound fracture to the lower back for Conway. Not entirely unexpected. One of the most violent impacts we've ever seen.

Page 73 of 76	All times are UTC+01:00
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Limited https://www.phpbb.com/

Author:	NVirkkula [ Mon May 31, 2010 8:07 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: The 94th Indianapolis 500
Beezle wrote: Eddington mains wrote: I feel that whetever the whys and the wherefores.. yesterday we could have had a triple fatality at Indy, and we should be greatful that we didnt... along with the Lambo and AUDI crashes last weekend we have been very luck not to add to the death toll this year! If you think further about this possible tripple fatality... and it WAS passible... the wreck could have killed several spectators, too. At that point we would talk about an accident you could easyly mention in one sentence with le mans 55... and all its consequences. This would have possibly been the end of indycar racing, at least as we know it. I could even imagine several countris ban oval racing or motorracing entirely. You can flame and argue, that his would have never happended. But after watching that several times and think about what would have been wen Conway flipped different, when RHR catched the gearbox and helio the water tank... I think this could have been the case. We were pretty close to a fatality for our whole sport. Yeah, exactly. Everyone was so damn lucky yesterday that it is almost impossible to believe. I can't remember any other accident that would have been so close to total disaster that would have happened lately. Well, Talladega 2009 where Keselowski hit the fence by ton, but even then there wasn't really big threat to so many drivers as in yesterday.

Author:	RtN [ Mon May 31, 2010 8:13 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: The 94th Indianapolis 500
Anyone have a g number for Conway's impact? It's got to rival Brack, surely.

Author:	James B [ Mon May 31, 2010 8:21 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: The 94th Indianapolis 500
ellis wrote: Compound fracture to the lower back for Conway. Compression fracture [/pedantic] If he'd had a compound fracture of his back, he'd be in a hell of a mess He also had 5 hours of surgery on his leg. That's quite a lot, isn't it? Must've been a mess as the descriptions in the earlier articles said. He hasn't got out of this particularly lightly 3 months out...I think that's optimistic, given that it's his left leg that's broken. When Webber came back after braking his right leg last year, he was still in pain, and that's the non-braking leg. I doubt Mike will do 3 more races this year RtN wrote: Anyone have a g number for Conway's impact? It's got to rival Brack, surely. I think the way he hit the fence took a lot of the force out of it. IIRC Brack hit an actual catch fence post head on, and was at a different angle. This was more like Briscoe's crash

Author:	ellis [ Mon May 31, 2010 8:27 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: The 94th Indianapolis 500
James B wrote: ellis wrote: Compound fracture to the lower back for Conway. Compression fracture [/pedantic] If he'd had a compound fracture of his back, he'd be in a hell of a mess I just copied off of Pippa Manns Tweet, which she now has deleted and put up a new tweet. :rolleyes lots:

Author:	RtN [ Mon May 31, 2010 8:29 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: The 94th Indianapolis 500
Considering that a compound fracture is when the parts of the bone in question go in two different directions, it's not entirely impossible that one fragment pierced the skin. As there were many torn ligaments and tendons as well, it suggests that the bones would have relocated quite significantly within the flesh of the leg.

Author:	Beezle [ Mon May 31, 2010 8:32 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: The 94th Indianapolis 500
Sry, but what is a compound fracture in german? I can't find a satisfying translation.