Just to give this thread some substance, he is fine. They took him to the hospital as a precaution. He had a headache and a sore back today but he is cleared to race at Lime Rock next weekend for the ALMS race.

 

I was watching that .... as I was replying to Brian about safety! It was a SHOCK to see it happen. . One of the most dramatic crashes I've seen in a long time.
The vid link does not work for me.

 

new link... try now

 

Just tried new link still doesn't work for me.

 

try again =P works for me

 

Link works for me... amazing!

 

Seems some uneven ground at the wrong spot caused him to go airborne. Terrible....but glad he's okay!!!!

 

Man sure glad he's ok. That looks like it happened just before the pave crossover that Mid-Ohio put in. One of the fastest sections of track. They had better grade that hump out of the grass so that doesn't happen again. Holy crap!!!

 

The mentioned on speed that there is a berm built in front of some sort of culvert. Its obvious they are going to have to do something . Maby we should link this to the saftey discussion ?

Randy
M7 tuning

 

dmh posted this it was has become the "saftey" thread:

http://www.speedtv.com/articles/auto/grandam/27471/

 

Saw that wreck on the coverage yesterday. One of the most spectacular and scary wrecks I've seen in a long, long time. Absolutely astonishing that he came away without any significant injuries at all.

Not that I'd want to walk around with his bruises this week.

Tremendous kudos to the guys who built that car and the safety devices in it. The cage, the seat, the belts, the mounts for the seat and the belts, all that stuff. Any bit of it could have failed, and reasonably so, and killed him.

Joey Hand has ***** like canaloupes.

 

Greg, I had a similar accident at NPR in 2004 , luckily I did not go end over end. Similar to Joey's offroad excursion which at first appears harmless, I also went into the infield grass at about 90 and I had the car perfectly under control looking ahead for a spot to renter the track.
Shortly after that thought I hit a ditch and the car launched like a lawn dart, spectators saw the underside of the car as it made a gracefull arch 50' from the launch site landing on the front wheels again.
Later I realized that only one wheel fell into the ditch while the left wheel passed smoothly over the cover ditch. If I had only been over 3 feet to the left I would have missed it altogather. I blamed the track for not having that ditch marked with orange fencing or tires...you just could not see it in all that grass.
I was lucky and so was the car which sustained minimal damage, a testament to how strong the Mini really is.
Regards,
Steve

 

This wreck was hard to watch and goes back to no matter how safe anyone thinks racing is, things do happen.

Racersite had an interesting interview with Joey, the link is below. It appears additional bracing in the cage with his HANS may have saved his life. I too feel the HANS has saved me from very serious injury. If you race there is no reason not to have one.

http://www.theracesite.com/index.cfm..._article=11772

 

Maybe I'll just go back to sailing .....

 

I don't know if that is any safer , at least you cant sink I spent sat afternoon sitting on the hull of an upside down renyolds R-33 cat in the middle of long beach harbor waiting for a rescue boat . Most of the good hobbies all have a down side LOL

Randy
M7 Tuning

 

I think the GTO tagged him, but why oh why is there a feature that turns a road car into an airplane so close to the track?

 

Why do they have that ski jump there anyways?? Wild ride, sad to see a car get wiped out like that. Must have been a scary one!!

 

Yes for sure the GTO hit him & turned him. The GTO driver was caught in the red mist for sure. Two laps to go & fighting for the lead. Not unexpected to have some contact. Normally one would drive through the grass & regain the track. Mid-Ohio really screwed up putting an obstacle so close to the track. As bad as that was it was also so damn lucky Joey is still with us.

 

I was there and saw the crash. As bad as the video is there something extra horrifying about seeing it with your own eyes. My heart was in my throat and I was literally shaking. Fortunately there was a spotter from the Citgo DP team nearby with a radio and he heard that Joey was awake and speaking so our worst fears were short lived.

Next day we were in the paddock when the hulk was brought to the team transporter hanging from the forks of a forklift. I'd left my camera behind for the first time all weekend of course, but the car was reduced to little more than the cage and interior, which was completely intact. There is some extra gusseting in the A-pillar/roof sections of the cage, which could certainly have helped.

I'm glad Joey's okay; I had a nice conversation with him at last year's event and he's a nice person. He was very interested in what a typical fan thought of the growth of the series.