TBK-Light.com

Theres always a point in life, that where were you when JFK was shot / Princess Di was killed / 9/11 etc etc..

for many of us here, where life revolves around Motorsport, one of if not the most profound and difficult weekends happened (or started) 20 years ago today (yesterday?)

Firstly the huge crash for Rubens...

then on the Saturday there was the fatal accident to Roland...... we know the rest of the weekend...

so heres my questions,

Where were you?

do you recall what went on around you, your family, how it affected you?....

I know mine, i know, i will post it later.

_________________
I think you should do what you want.

It's your forum and I paid the bills this year..

and if people don't like it they shouldComplain here

I can't remember a thing except seeing images of Senna's funeral afterwards thinking it was that British bloke who died (Mansell).

No one really followed motorsport in my family

I was 8 years old and already watched F1 races live.

I used to look forward to see crashes and at that time I didn't even think about the consequences at all.

I saw Barrichellos Crash live, found it very spectacular and realized afterwards, seeing the aftermath, what a crash can really mean.

The Saturday I missed completely. Didn't watch F1 nor the news that day, so I heard about Ratzenberger in the pre race show. I was kind of shocked and was (for the first time) not really able to "enjoy" the start crash.
Well... I kind of did when I saw te drivers walk away.

But when Senna crashed I knew immediately that this is very very bad.

I'll never forget the weekend I learned that accidents in real life can be more severe than in Tom and Jerry.

Thoughts from a then 15 year old kals...

When I first heard about and saw Rubens accident on the news, I didn't think much of it. I assumed that Rubens would be fine and a too much fuss was being made over it. Looking back it was a callous way of reacting but to me it was just another hard crash no different to any of the similar accidents I'd witnessed growing up where mostly minor injuries were suffered, if any.

On to the Saturday I was playing in the garden at the time of Ratzenberger's accident (no quali coverage from BBC back then and I didn't have satellite TV) and I heard about it on Radio 5 Live. A couple of hours later I went back to the 5 Live coverage and heard that Roland had passed. At the time I wasn't sad, I wasn't shocked, I believe I just thought that it was a shame. Thinking about it as I've got older I think there were two reasons for my reaction. 1) I didn't know anything about Roland. 2) I didn't witness it, there was no TV coverage so I didn't see any of the terrible footage that was broadcast live to the many millions.

Sunday was a different story however. I watched the whole thing and it affected me, for the reasons that Roland's accident didn't. I'd grown up idolizing Mansell so despising Senna. Watching the entire race, the startline crash, Senna's accident and then the efforts save him, the Minardi pitstop, then Steve Rider's "clinically dead" announcement mid-way through the race disturbed me. Later that evening while watching one of BBC news' broadcasts, there were tears.

To me it just seems crazy that 20 years have already gone by. And so quickly too.

RIP Roland - Adeus Ayrton

_________________
BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

It was a strange one for me because I actually missed the Senna accident live. We saw the start (Lamy/Lehto's crash), then we went out of the house because it was my Dad's 50th birthday and we went for a pub lunch with family. As I got into my Dad's car he already had the radio on and just heard Senna had crashed, and I wanted to go back into the house to see it. But I didn't, and we drove the short journey to the pub. I don't remermber thinking the crash would be life threatening. But when we got back to the house later, after the race had finished, my cousin (who had stayed at home and didn't go to the pub) said "Ayrton Senna's dead" and we were all stunned.

_________________
TBK Premier League Prediction Game Champion 2010/11

My Flickr photographs
My rubbish YouTube channel

I was 18 back then.

That year I was a bit lost, as my all time favourite driver Alain Prost was no longer part of it.

Then there was friday, with the huge crash of Rubens. And I remember very well that it seemed that it was virtually impossble to die in a F1 car (there were numerous bad crashes before)

Then comes Saturday, and it was very weird. Roland died, but the show just went on. It was in the news, but besides that it was also in the news about Senna's pole position, and discussions that he needed a good result this weekend. So the focus was still very much on the racing itself, rather than on Roland's death. At least that was my perception.

Then there is sunday. Bad crash at the start, and then Senna's crash. It looked like a hard crash, but like I said, there were so many hard crashes previously with like zero injury that my immediate thought was that it was going to be OK. Senna seemed to be moving his head. Then helicopters landed, and I still was convinced it was all not that bad. Also the Belgian commentators did not have a clue, as during the race there were very conflicting messages, one of them that he was apparently ok, except for a broken leg or arm.

When the race was finished, there were not really podium ceremonies, but the guys on the podium did seem to be happy with what they had achieved. They were off course not overwhelminly happy, but they didn't seemed to be sad, so I was still asuming Senna was OK. Again I don't know how BBC was commentating, but Belgian commentators didn't really have a clue back then.

So it was an enourmous shock to find out a few hours later that Ayrton had died...

And it kept on going at Monaco, and Spain as well.

I was 5 back at the time, didn't watched the races regularly (started doing that 3 years later) but was racing fan and knew senna was set as the best

I don't recall any news about Roland and Rubens, and didn't watched the race, was at a party with some family friends and only at night I got the news that Senna died and it was all that we see for the past 20 years

at the time I was a child, didn't felt nothing, never lost someone important and it didn't made no difference. today, everytime I see the brazilian gps he won, when he speakes about Honda depart in 1992, and some tributes on TV (specially the 1994 WC celebrations) I feel very emotional, I like a lot when people at the day said "he was the part of Brazil that worked, he was the hope and the pride of a nation"

just one of the 10 greatest brazilians ever. Driven to perfection, overcoming limits, being the best. RIP

_________________
Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

I was 8 at the time. For some reason we missed the race live, but had it tape recorded. We heard that there had been a life threatening accident with Senna, and put the race straight on when we arrived home. I don't remember much about watching the race back, but I did get upset.

I used to watch the practice and qualifying on Eurosport, but my memories of Roland's accident are hazy. A tragic weekend.

I was nearly 9 years old that day, but still I remember it very clearly. It was my brothers 7th birthday morning (1st of May) when my father was reading the local news paper Lapin Kansa (Lapland Times). Main topic in sports was the death of Roland Ratzenberger and the shock about the brutality of it. There was a color picture on the paper where my father noticed that the cockpit was destroyed and you could see Roland's white overall through the side of it. My father said something like that he had no chance to survive and motor racing can be dangerous. As a kid, this was the first time for me to get some kind of concept about death and that it can be untimely sometimes.

Fast forward few hours of typical children's birthday party, great weather, Sun is shining, kids are running on the back yard, kicking football, throwing balloons, eating cake, drinking soda. Perfect spring day in Lapland.

Then the race was about to start and since 1993 Estoril GP, where my father was as his employees VIP (he won a phone-quiz that main office had held earlier that year), I was kinda into motorsports already and I always wanted to see the start. And because of Mika Häkkinen and JJ Lehto, so did the adults too. So people gathered in front of the television to see it. Not all of the kids though, I was one of the oldest there and had the interest on it and I also talked my brother in to it watch the start. The lights went green, all of our eyes were on JJ Lehto, who stalled. People gasped in disappointment at first, then for the shock when Pedro Lamy crashed flat out on Lehto's stationary car. People were worried about Lehto's neck, that was still in healing process, but were glad to see him walk away.

Out comes the safety car, the Opel Vectra, that was desperately slow. And it seemed to stay on track for eternity. Some of the men throw comments about how stupid it was to have a stupid Opel on track and it would have been better to go with red flag instead, the way it was done before. Finally the Opel pulls away and the racing starts. But not for long, as we all know.

Everyone in the room gasped in shock once again. But this time, everyone just froze, even the kids went silent when they saw the Williams hit the wall. The silence filled the whole house that was just a moments ago having laughing kids and adults. Everyone just kept staring at the screen during the aftermath moments, some men started to speculate about the seriousness, but my father insisted that "it's Senna, he's probably having just a head ache or something and he'll be back in the next race at Monaco for sure." But then my mother's mother, who had personally seen a man dying due accident, said that "look at his feet, the are pointing outside too much. He's dead." Then moments later you could see some blood and that was the moment when my mother took me and my brother outside and told us to start playing with the other kids, since it's a birthday party, after all. Kicking the football didn't feel so jolly anymore. Once in a while I sneaked back in with an excuse to get soda and candies. But all I wanted to see was what was going on in the race. I noticed it was still going on. Mother kicked me outside again, she didn't want us to see anything that bad anymore, the mother's instinct. The moment when I realized something was terribly wrong, was when there was no champagne and adults pointed that out to be a bad sign. No one was happy, even though Mika was on the podium.

_________________
"Indy doesn't give you a second chance. You have to earn it."

I remember Ratzenberger's accident very well, like it was yesterday.

It was a sunny Saturday morning. It was a little cold, but sunny anyways. We were receving in my house that very day a man who was a friend of my father and he worked on house construction. "Deca" was his nickname and that day he came to make a repair in one of the bathrooms...later on, in that same day we were installing a new TV in the living room but it wasn't working properly so he helped us to make TV work ok.

When I first turned on the TV, first sighting I had was a car spinning and desintagrating dragging from Villeneuve corner to La Tosa. When I saw that I said "wooow, look at that!". And then me, my father and Deca were all into the living room discussing the crash. While my father and Deca said it was fatal, I insisted on telling it wasn't by replying that I had already seen similar accidents where drivers survived, giving Nelson Piquet's Indianapolis 500 example....

As soon as the first replays were shown, I could see I was very wrong.....sadly, very wrong. I could see something was really wrong on that.....for the first time I realize I was watching something I have never witnessed before, a death in Formula 1. And that episode in particular was only the begining of a nightmare.....nobody ever imagined what was going to happen in the following day.

I was 5 years old. Didn't care for F1, no one in the family watched F1, would be another 5 years until I watch my first race in 1999.
But perhaps it was better that way. It's not healthy for 5-year-old to see deaths and blood whether it's fiction or reality.

I was a mere 2 years old, but apparently my dad (not that big of a racing fan yet back then) did watch it, and I did as well.

All the disasters of the practice, qualifying and race were played on the news each night.
We didn't get Formula 1 live in NZ in 1994, so I had to wait until the next weekend to watch the race.
It was a very sad time and put me off F1 for a year or so.

I was 10 and as usual I was playing with matchbox or micromachine cars in front of the TV during the race. I remember my dad saying "he's dead" when Senna was lying there on the ground losing a lot of blood. I don't remember if we watched the whole race after that or if we went out to my grandparents as usual on a Sunday, but I do remember watching the announcement of his dead on the evening news.

My Father usually watched every F1 Race back in the 90´s.So I(10 Years old) was sitting with him infront of the TV when Senna crashed.My Father immediately sayed that its not looking very good for him.And he sayed that measured on the things that happened before on this weekend he dont think he will be surviving.....

We where waiting the whole day for an announcement.Senna´s crash was the first Fatal one I saw live as it happens.Suddenly not the only one till today

one thing that I remember well is to see in a Senna special on that week and featured this comic, dunno if it's inapropriate, so I'll put in the spoiler

_________________
Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

Senna died officially at 6.40 pm local time.

i remember that day still. i was 8. woke up early and watched it. it was on ESPN here and i believe it started at 6. (could be wrong) i went and woke my dad up to tell him senna had been killed in a crash. being half awake he said no James your getting confused with roland yesterday, senna is fine. go watch the race. i tried to convince him it was senna and made him come watch it with me. (stupid 8yr old boys lol) i feel we all will be having a similar conversation in 2031 when its been 20 years since Wheldons passing.

Wasn't following Motorsport at all in 1994 and I was 7 years old back in the day... Maybe I saw it in the news but I don't remember it. My dad was a Motorsport maniac/rally driver but he passed away in 1990 when I was 3. And my mom never watch racing.

I only started watching Motorsport in 1995 (starting with Stock Car, Nascar & CART on Eurosport) and then F1 in 1997.

Had just turned 13, though I wasn't yet interested in motorsport I can still remember the huge shock of hearing about his death.