Apparently Hondas *Can* Fly...

Thanks for the info Rick. I was wondering how the guy was, considering this was only the second time I've been red flagged in 10 years of track driving. I thought something must have let go in the car for it to go off like that. The track really needs to lock off that area or put some barriers up there...

sachilles wrote: I'd have to guess steering and braking systems must have had some failures.

Even if the brakes were working fine, if you can't steer the car you can't keep it on the track and that was a rainy day and the ground was wet, so the brakes would be useless as soon as he got off the pavement, it's both feet in and at that point you're just a passenger.

Best wishes for a speedy and complete recovery.

One of the worst things about this is that NASA officials were taking away cameras and trying to stop photo takers. Swept under the rug... Best wishes to Angelo.

Thanks so much for your kind responses. I'll be going up with Angelo's brother Frank to visit him in the hospital tonight.

I will pass your good wishes on to him, and hopefully get a better understanding from him as to what actually happened.

I apologize again for being so emotional in my first response -- but you folks have been very understanding.

The cage was indeed excellent, and had to be also cut away to get to him.

thanks again to all, r.

Hello all my name is Steve and I feel the need to weigh in regarding this incident, and I will address several issues that were brought up in this thread. I, like Rick don't take these issues lightly in the least; especially where the implications are so serious.

Thanks Rick for bringing this down to earth and for the points you brought up (which I will update slightly) and the report on Angelo; we have him in our racer prayers for a speedy recovery; this type of injury is going to have a long and painful recovery time and he’s not out of the woods yet.

OK, firstly, I have been involved with racing for over 30 years as a driver, coach and engineer; I am also an Instructor for Russell Racing and in addition run Gp3 for NASA and act as the OPAK / Spoon drivers coach among other things. I too know Angelo very well, he literally grew up at this track and knows it very well and has driven it in more cars than I can name here. I highly respect his talents both on and off track; I'd race wheel to wheel with him any time, and hope to do so again.

What I do want to add to this thread is what has been discovered so far regarding supposed parts breakage or system failure(s) that caused the incident, and what the in car video and testimony of others has brought to light.

By the way, before I get going too far I should mention that after a VERY thorough review by NASA as of yesterday (which is why they impound video etc), their determination is that driver error in contacting the inside wall at turn 1 (on the left) possibly caused by being in a RHD car was the major contributor to the incident. This determination is backed up by witness marks on the left side of the car and that is why we NEVER want to surmise or speculate on what happened until we get all of the data, and match it to what we forensically find on the car.

Just after the car was recovered, I went over the car with Tom Leper (who does just this thing for a living) and Mark the OPAK Crew Chief very closely as rumors were already floating around about a "catastrophic failure" causing this incident. Our preliminary findings were this in a nutshell as I reported to NASA:

“After looking the car over very closely in situ with the front end raised up so we could get under for a good look, I / we (Tom, Mark) don’t see anything that would indicate a mechanical failure at this time; the rear suspension appeared perfectly intact and had little or no apparent damage; the right front suspension (the loaded side in that turn) was completely intact, again with little or no damage other than impact, certainly as it would pertain to a sudden loss of control. The only serious damage was to the left front corner and the initial determination is that it was entirely crash related. We did not have the time or capability to investigate anything in the steering rack/ engine area for possible issues yet, but I wouldn’t anticipate anything there as externally the rack appeared to be intact as was the steering linkage.

Further, the good news is that the cage remained intact and did its job perfectly absorbing energy where it was required; the driver area and seat was completely intact with no stress tearing or visual stress cracking damage in the critical welds, nor did we find signs of compression damage in the vertical cage elements or floor. The seat and all driver safety items worked perfectly as designed to keep the driver as safe as possible given the severity of the incident. Overall I was happily surprised at how well the car remained intact.”

A little lesson in time goes along with this as to why it may have appeared that no correction happened. Given that he was going say 110 mph at the moment he was covering about ~161feet per second; the track is perhaps 40 feet wide at that point, that would give a time to recover at half of .248 seconds (to cross the track) to keep it on the track. It takes you about .3 sec to blink and normal human reaction time is .4 sec; that is why at the strip if you cut a light faster than .4 you foul. The bottom line is that there was just no time to correct or do anything in the car to save it.

Now I hope you guys can concentrate on sending Angelo all of our good vibes, he is what is truly important here and he needs them.

Thanks,

Steve

Steve, I thank you for sending your best to my brother But you have not talked to my brother to even find out what had happened in his crash so Mr.Pro Driver if you do not have all the facts keep it to your self. i would like you to give me a call I WANT TO TALK TO YOU ASAP 925-321-6474

Thank You all for your support,

Frank Zucchi

I really don't know anything about this incident, but as a long time drag racer I have to correct what you said about human reaction time. The reason a .400 was a perfect light in pro-tree racing (all 3 yellows at once) is that the lights stay on for .4 seconds. Starting in 2003 it was changed to ".000" seconds. Drag racers are not "reacting" to the tree insomuch as "anticipating" it. Especially on the Sportsman tree (3 yellows go off sequentially in .5 seconds each) where you see drivers "leave" on the 3rd yellow so the car breaks the beams perfectly at .000, right when green lights up. It is possible, even likely, that most humans react a lot faster then 4/10ths of a second, especially while racing. A Top Fuel car clears a 1/4 mile in under 4.5 seconds and the driver makes corrections all the way down the track.

Thanks for the report Steve. A real issue to me here is that the car made it into those grandstands. Is NASA or Infineon Raceway going to take any action on this?

For those of you following this thread, I did call and speak with Angelo’s brother Frank this morning per his request and was very upset to hear that my original post seems to have been interpreted by some in such a fashion that places blame entirely upon Angelo for the incident; that is patently not the case. It is for just such a reason as this that as a rule I never post to these forums.

I do indeed apologize profusely to Angelo and the entire Zucchi family for any pain that this may have caused in this terrible time. Indeed as Frank has stated, I have not had the chance to debrief Angelo, and although I intend to eventually in order to get further understanding, now is not the time given the situation he is in.

I state again that I have the utmost respect for Angelo as a driver; certainly being one that is not prone to make mistakes; this is part of what makes this incident all the more troubling. Having said that, I must emphasize that I have NOT personally formed any firm opinion as to the causality of the incident, as I do not have all of the data, nor was the prior post meant to convey that in any fashion.

To be clear: the purpose of the post was firstly to get people to understand the gravity of this situation and to stop the joking crap and get behind Angelo who needs our best wishes and prayers for a speedy recovery.

Secondarily, the intent was to clamp down on the rumor mill that inevitably grinds out crap after something like this happens and report the current understanding and findings by the associated parties as it was given to me; no more no less.

Also to clarify - by no means was this meant to be the end of the story - nor does it mean that OPAK (talking with Honda) will not continue to look for all possible causes for the incident as further information comes to light, especially from Angelo.

If anything good is to come of this incident it is imperative that what happened is understood for all to learn from, so with that understanding it may be possible to prevent a situation such as this from happening again. I have already read that some people are now seriously anxious to put cages in their cars and get the appropriate safety gear which certainly saved Angelo’s life.

Again, to Angelo and his family, you all have my humble and heartfelt apologies for this awful misunderstanding and my very best wishes and prayers for Angelo’s speedy recovery.

Most Sincerely,

Steve

P.S. I do stand corrected regarding the drag strip reaction analogy. However, the key thing that P71 stated was “anticipated” reaction time, especially something you are focusing on, which is somewhere around .2+ sec which is a tad bit quicker than a reaction to a surprise stimulus, and that is pretty much beside the point I was trying to make. The point was to get folks that think Angelo didn’t react properly or do something in the car to correct whatever happened to understand that even though a recovery may have been attempted, and he did everything perfectly, there was little or no time for any input to have an effect, given the velocity of the car and the distance traveled before going off.

Rick, Steve and Frank,

Thank you for contributing to this thread and making it real for all of us. It is easy to let "anti-ricer" or similar sentiments lead to callous, unfelling and unfair comments. This board is a caring extended family for many of us who been hanging around for more years than we would like to admit. I know the majority of us are pulling for Angelo and hope he has full and speedy recovery.

I'd like to thank everyone once again for the tremendous response as this post has developed. I never fail to be amazed at how the race community seems to pull together in times like these. Thanks for the kind and thoughtful responses, and to those who have reached out to Angelo at this very difficult time.

As you can imagine, the aftershocks of an accident like this will continue to be felt for some time. I'm happy to report that Angelo is now recovering with his family. He's a lucky guy in many respects -- surviving an accident like this with "only" three crushed vertebrae and the prospects of one day returning to driving speaks very highly of proper safety equipment (importantly including a Hans) in a truly well-built car. And he's also extraordinarily lucky for having such a great support group.

The road to full recovery is going to be a long one, and Angelo faces more than a few obstacles along the way. For those interested in helping him out, there will be a benefit barbecue at the Russell School at Sears during the middle of the day this coming Saturday, the 22nd. Frank and I will both be there, as I'm sure will be plenty of other friends. Please join us contribute something, no matter how small. The gesture alone means a lot.

Thanks again to everyone -- it reinforces just how unified this little racing community of ours can be when the chips are down.