i agree.... i loved the covid part....Quote:
Originally Posted by Norm75
Printable View
i agree.... i loved the covid part....Quote:
Originally Posted by Norm75
No words; absolutely speechless.
Dear friends,
I don't like to write too many things in public, but today is the time to do it. Back in Hyundai days I used to catch all the drivers in every rally evening and shortly brief them on what is expected during next day and how it might influence their driving. In 2021 Rally Finland (Autumn edition), it was very gray day. Low clouds, quite cool weather and felt like it starts to rain in any moment. I told in my lunch report that there might be some low sun coming out for the second half of the final stage. And I reminded it ca 30 minutes before the stage. It was still all gray and low clouds.. and 10 minutes before the final stage, sun came out and it was proper low sun for final half of the stage… So, in the evening I found Craig from hospitality with his „family-friends-supporter gang“ all in one, really nice group of people. When I went close to table, Craig immediately noticed it and asked before I started to talk about next day weather. „How on earth you knew that sun is coming out just before the stage and you said it already before noon service! This is impossible!“ And then he started to explain the story to his friends. I just re-played something like „lucky guess“ or smth. Don't remember exactly. The main idea here was that Craig was doing it always, he made you feel good and happy in his own funny way. And he enjoyed it when he managed to make someone feel good. We are a bit similar here, but I am not on his level yet!
Well, Craig, I hope there were some brighter moments between rainclouds today as well, so you could jump on the side of Jaffa today. I am sure there was! I can already imagine how you too are making so many jokes up there that angels need to laugh so bad that tears are coming out from their eyes and it starts to rain down on the earth because of that. But please, try to hold back your jokes while our cars are on the stages… with hard tires ;)
And I will remember you by keeping up my positive attitude and try to infect others as well in service park!
Rest In Peace dear Colleague!
Guys, have you seen this?
https://www.facebook.com/CraigBreen4...8183734875845/
Absolutely gutted, one of the good guys.
Rip Craig, you will be missed but not forgotten
Only just seen the news. Very sad time for rallying.
Craig's end of stage interviews will be missed. On his day he had the speed to be up there with the best. Thoughts are with his family, friends, & current and former team mates.
Im so sad, R.I.P Craig Breen.
So sad...RIP Craig, rally fans will miss you.
A video from the place where it happened https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_66kj2Jld54
Pure unluck...Quote:
Originally Posted by flat_right
I hope somebody from Dirtfish reads this, they are going over the line in my opinion with new article practicly every few hours, maybe take it down a notch and let people mourn
Sadly, the numbing feeling of losing a member of our sport never goes. Am old enough to have felt empty and angry when Attilio Bettega left us in '85, only to go through the same emotions the following year. Michael Park's tragedy brought back what we had thought was by-gone era and now Craig. Damn! It's a day after and am not feeling good about the day.
https://www.motorsportireland.com/
Motor Sport Ireland have opened an online Book of Condolences if anyone wishes to sign
RIP Craig 1990-2023
Thank you Craig Breen for all memories
https://youtu.be/FhfDqBiAeyA
https://i.postimg.cc/cJx6qkJ8/625240...iga-breena.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/sxhgPtTb/625240...iga-breena.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/B6t6b8HS/625240...iga-breena.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/q71qpctD/625240...iga-breena.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/LX7s1H3z/625240...iga-breena.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/K8r4Hhm2/625240...iga-breena.jpg
A friend sent me a picture she took at the goodwood revival last year. Seems fitting to share it here
Attachment 2404
Thoughts with James Fulton too, this must have been an awful thing to experience. I hope he's being appropriately supported.
Well said that man.Quote:
Originally Posted by the sniper
Why not?Quote:
Originally Posted by PLuto
I think it’s a question of proportionality. Maybe such safety measures would be possible at World Championship level, but if they were made mandatory, it would seriously impact the sport at every other level.Quote:
Originally Posted by jparker
It’s already difficult for volunteers to put rallies on, and I suspect the time and resources necessary to implement such measures at national and regional level would be impossible for most.
So, the question is, as it always has been… are the risks worthwhile?
Craig Breen knew those risks and their tragic consequences better than most, and the story of his career tells you how he felt about it. When you truly love something, you aren’t put off by the downsides. You know the danger is there, you respect it, but it doesn’t stop you pulling your helmet on and chasing the thing you love, the thing that gets you out of bed in the morning.
Rallying was Craig Breen’s raison d’être. He’s paid the ultimate price. Does anyone think he would want to see the sport he loved neutered in such a way in his name? I don’t.
@ouverur, I got your point, but in this particular case the danger looks way too obvious. However, I will not poin fingers without seeing the spot prior the incident.
Indeed. Local reports say he was in a state of total shock when taken from the car.Quote:
Originally Posted by the sniper
The disbelief must've been extreme as the accident didn't seem that heavy. Fans nearby said they just expected the car to reverse and continue.
It looks obvious in hindsight. There are dangers everywhere, in about every rally. You cannot cover up/cushion or block off all the cliffsides, rivers, lakes, trees(!!), fences, electrical poles, hinkelstein ++. That would cost an extreme amount of labour. If we are to go that route, we might as well skip the sport and direct to safer circuit racing instead.Quote:
Originally Posted by jparker
It is tragic what has happened. Rallying is dangerous, and while the cars have never been safer than they are in this new era and regulations are put in place to make it safer, there is still a risk the drivers and Co drivers take at the end of the day. The amount of crashes that drivers can just walk away from, just look at Tänak's big Monte Carlo crash. Had Breen hit the pole just 20cm further ahead, then probably he'd walk out of the car unharmed. Theres if's and there's but's.
Rest in peace Breen, you were one of my favourite drivers ever. What an incredible personality that we have lost from the sport forever
Sent from my F8331 using Tapatalk
make a wild guess why not...Quote:
Originally Posted by jparker
Attachment 2405
some of you guys should pay a fee to walk among non retarded people....
Go to masturbate or pick up a ship stupid.Quote:
Originally Posted by NOT
how deep into the forest are we covering the trees ? because a car can also go between a few trees and crash 10-20 meters into the forest... do we also have to trim the branches of all trees and bushes in case they go through the windshield ?Quote:
Originally Posted by jparker
@katvala. What hindsight? It is long straight ending with right turn. You miss the turn and go straight into the fence. How more obvious you would like it to be to consider it dangerous?
There are such dangers all over most of the stages. Fences are very common alongside roads. Houses, cliffsides, trees. Do you suggest that they put up cushions in front of trees in a forest stage? No car will allow you to survive a head on crash into a tree at full speed. If Breen hadn't crashed where he did, nobody would've pointed out that area. Just look at footage from any rally stage and you'll see hazards everywhere. Covering up everything would cost a ton and not be worthwhile. The other option was like I say to start driving on race tracks instead, or to only do open field rallies like most of Ypres is..Quote:
Originally Posted by jparker
I feel that I and others here have already answered this. They do already put hazards in the notebooks, put chicanes etc in some dangerous places. But doing this for all corners across 300+ kilometers in a rally, plus test stages, just isn't happening.
Sent from my F8331 using Tapatalk
If you saw the video taken shortly before the crash by someone standing almost exactly where the accident happened, it wasn’t a long straight and he wasn’t going that fast.Quote:
Originally Posted by jparker
The other thing I don’t like about the suggestion that this corner was ‘obviously dangerous’ is the implication that Craig / James, or the test coordinator, or the local organisers, should have known better.
Craig and James will have been around hundreds if not thousands of corners far more ‘dangerous’ than this one. Indeed, knowing the incident happened around 11:40, it’s unlikely this was their first run of the day. They would have negotiated the same corner several times prior to the crash.
It should almost go without saying since it’s so obvious, but crews at the top level will bring any concerns they might have about safety - people standing in crazy places, unsuitable road conditions, cars parked too close to the road etc. - during their recce or any of their test runs.
Hyundai’s test coordinator is extremely experienced, and fantastic at what he does. He will have checked the road beforehand, making sure it was fit for purpose and that safety measures were in place. There’s a chance that he’s thinking “if only” now, but at the same time, I expect he already knows that he did all he could and that, short of putting a tyre wall outside every corner, there’s no way he could have prevented what happened.
Similarly for the test and rally organisers - they may well be doing a bit of soul searching now, wondering what they could have done differently then, and do next weekend, to prevent such a freak incident from happening. But again, short of either neutering the competition by removing ‘dangerous’ corners and stages from the itinerary, or lining all the roads with tecpro barriers, what can be done? The nature of the sport is that it uses roads and goes to places that circuit races don’t.
By all means, everyone can think about how to prevent it from happening to anyone else. Maybe all fences and barriers with horizontal elements could have some protection put in front of them, or have those horizontal elements removed. But where do you stop?
Absolutely correct.Quote:
Originally Posted by ouvreur
As someone who drove on that road countless times and watched dozens of PET's and development test on that particular road section this is just terrible fate and bad luck.
Corner speed there in rainy conditions is about 70ish-80ish km/h and if a car would go off a million times then this is ''once in a million'' situation. Still 2 days after in complete shock and disbelief...
RIP Craig, we will miss you!
You wouldn't normally crash there so early in the corner either, but there was some water running across the road just at the breaking i saw, just one of those freak accidents.
Terribly sad, he will be missed a lot. I remember thinking a few times lately that Craig was the only one i got good footage of on every stage, always pushing and enjoying himself. The tricky jump in Oittila in the dark in 21 when no one else was jumping and the "Yeeehaaa" corner in Sävar this year are som of my best recent memories.
Rest easy Craig
this i thought too.Or he had lost his line from previous corner.Quote:
Originally Posted by SubaruNorway
Previously there is a reasonable straight.
If he had bad line at the previous corner, likely he would have recovered it at this straight. No?
In any case. This lovely person did not have any luck. This is just unreal...
you can't remove all dangers along the stage. but they could and should have improved the protection against intrustion of foreign objects into the cars.
from the very first rally it was obvious that the drivers are very exposed in these new cars. There are just tubes to protect them, but plates or something to stop stuff getting into the car. by this age, the drivers should be seated in a carbon monocoque that gives them allround protection.
https://www.ewrc.cz/images/2022/phot...l_z71_6379.jpg
Local media report:
"The Hyundai, driven by Breen, ran off the road and hit a utility pole with the left front. His co-driver James Fulton, with whom he started working at the end of last season, was not seriously injured in the accident.
Shock and disbelief rule the Zagorje town where the tragedy happened. According to initial information, the car also hit the fence, part of which broke through the windshield and caused fatal injuries to the driver."
https://www.jutarnji.hr/vijesti/crna...-srce-15325473
I was thinking the same thing, if there is something to take away from this that is to have an investigation about improving cockpit intrusion defense. Especially as the bodywork seems to be now more flimsy and easy to break off, seems that is an area that should be looked at.Quote:
Originally Posted by denkimi
I was quite shocked when I read the news,
couldn't even find any words. I'm saddened every time I think of WRC and Craig, it's big loss to the championship. A driver who could challenge for podiums and keep the top guys honest and who had a great character and personality, the WRC scene is poorer without him. Personally I loved it every time he would say he's happy and grateful to be driving in the WRC at the stage ends, it made me happy to be watching and be a bit more mindful that I'm following live rallying and it made me enjoy my time watching even more. I miss Craig.
Judging by the few pictures we've seen, the outcome would have been the same in a WRC, as the fence went through the windshield and the bodywork was not really damaged.Quote:
Originally Posted by denkimi
I'm reading more and more posts here from people who want to turn RALLY sport into a formula 1 race, please move to their forum section and don't pollute here. There you can buy some popcorn and stay on the sofa, maybe even get some sleep. This forum is for man..
Rest in peace Craig Breen..Gone too soon!