Thread: [IRC] Targa Florio Rally

Gareth was from Carmarthen not far from my home. Sad loss for his family and for the home town. Thoughts are with his family...

Originally Posted by Fast Eddie WRC

Maybe they need to add flat end sections to the road barriers where they start and finish... so a car cant run into a sharp piece of metal which can spear straight though the front of the grille...

Right. A friend of mine told me - an italian - this is typical for his country. Here in Austria we have that solution, if you go straight to this road barriers, mybe you have a jump, but no fatal accident like this. Remember also the Mini Crash at Bulgaria Rally week ago.

Originally Posted by Fast Eddie WRC

Maybe they need to add flat end sections to the road barriers where they start and finish... so a car cant run into a sharp piece of metal which can spear straight though the front of the grille...

In Sweden have they done that, there is a flat square about 50x50 cm.

Originally Posted by Fast Eddie WRC

Maybe they need to add flat end sections to the road barriers where they start and finish... so a car cant run into a sharp piece of metal which can spear straight though the front of the grille...

I'm sure even in Italy they make new barriers with safer endings but You know there are thousands of kilometers of those old especially in the poorer south of the country. From the onboard of Kopecký of stage Targa I would say there were hundreds of such places along stages.

Originally Posted by noel157

There's a lot more to it if you try and think for just a minute. Pretty insensitive saying that considering it was before the rescue people arrived.

Absolutely. They should have not come to the level of tabloid press.

Originally Posted by makinen_fan

seen the picture of the crashed car. really similar to kubica. the manufacturers must do something about such crashes... they deemed kubicas crash as really unlucky, but second time happening exactly the same it is unacceptable. i cant remember similar crashes in the past, at least not so serious. probably it is something with the design of the current generation of rally cars? very short nose that does not allow for energy absorption during head on impact?

fia and manufacturers MUST act about this

What do You want to do against that? To race in tanks? I tried to explain in another thread. Railbar if hit to the sharp straight end can go even through engine block (saw that with BMW X5). No car can resists such penetration. Such materials don't exist.

After 100s of complaints through FB etc IRC/Eurosport still haven't removed the video. Poor judgement by the people involved.

Originally Posted by Mirek

I'm sure even in Italy they make new barriers with safer endings but You know there are thousands of kilometers of those old especially in the poorer south of the country. From the onboard of Kopecký of stage Targa I would say there were hundreds of such places along stages.

Indeed.

The only realistic solution, if the IRC wants to stop guardrails skewering cars, is to not hold stages/rallies with guardrails with unprotected ends.

Originally Posted by noel157

After 100s of complaints through FB etc IRC/Eurosport still haven't removed the video. Poor judgement by the people involved.

i never understood why people complain about images of fatal accidents... which of course do not have any graphic images on.

By burring your head in the sand does not offer anything... on the contrary it can cover things which might be used for useful conclusions and avoid future repeats.

I've had quite a lot of rallying stuff going on lately and even more to come, so I decided not to follow Targa Florio very closely, mainly due to practical reasons, as I was hiking with my friends in a national park and really didn't have much internet access. Today when I arrived home and got up to date with everything I stopped. Right in the beginning I saw something utterly disturbing, as one of my friends had "RIP Gareth " in Facebook. Roberts immediatly came to my mind as I remembered the HRT deal for Targa Florio and I had just few days ago watched some onboard of theirs. I knew it was him but didn't want to believe it. It can't happen to guys on that level, right? But when I checked official news it was clear. I had this really very very bad feeling. I wondered by myself why rallying has to be so cruel...why the dark side of rallying has been showing itself so much lately... "What-if" thinking really didn't help: what if they wouldn't have won the Academy? What if the HRT deal would not have happened? But we can't change history, what has happened, has happened - just like ink dries on a paper.

Even though he was a real professional, Roberts was still a very young guy, just three years older than me - it got me thinking stuff and life in general. I'm sure that he, as a competitor, knew the risks involved and accepted them every time he tightened his helmet strap and safety harness, but still, the death is a terrible loss.

In the end, most likely we can't really decide how we leave from this world. Life is a risk as they say. As bad cliché as it sounds, Gareth Roberts died doing what he loved. If I would have the power to decide how I would leave this world, I would like it to happen amongst the things I love. Rallying is inherently dangerous and as long as we don't use children's pedal cars to compete with the fact won't change. Nevertheless, it's difficult to accept that Gareth Roberts is gone.

I would like to extend my heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of Gareth Roberts. I wish Graig Breen a lot of strength. RIP Gareth Roberts.

R.I.P Gareth. condolences to your family and to your friend Craig.

R.I.P. Gareth, my condolences to everyone involved

Please see here for book of condolences.
Craig Breen Rallying

some photos from Targa Florio
eWRC.cz - Fotogalerie Rally Targa Florio 2012 Ivo Nesrovnal


eWRC.cz - Fotogalerie Rally Targa Florio 2012 Greg Roslon

lol

I dont think this is the end of a barrier. Barriers are overlapping in the direction the car is traveling, so on the opposite side of the road the barriers have an opposite overlap. This would mean that if you hit a barrier on the wrong side of the road sliding along the barrier, the overlap will be peeled off and if the speed is high enough would drag the barrier out into the road, and into the car...

RIP Gareth

The photo upon is different accident of Ferraroti. The accident of Breen happened in this corner: Google Maps (street view). It really was an end of the barrier, not overlapping.

Originally Posted by Mirek

The photo upon is different accident of Ferraroti. The accident of Breen happened in this corner: Google Maps (street view). It really was an end of the barrier, not overlapping.

I do not understand the reason of using such a rail in this place... It can easily start after the small space a few tens of meters later. Sometimes road builders tend to overuse such a safety things..

Yes, here the rails are absolutely useless even for normal road traffic.

The rail is horrible. It must be properly ended, somehow rounded, or digged into ground. It is very dangeous even for civil car, because it works like rapier.
I hope, for the future organisers and safety inspectors must pay attention to such places and make them safer somehow.

Unbelievable! Just came across a photo of inside the car.
Rail really got in there. Terrible accident