Massa Hurt

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/25/SPNA18UCNE.DTL

i heard about it this morning while in child birth classes, my little brother told me he got knocked out by a spring and i was thinking it was on pit road and probably nothing serious until i saw it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0ltCJXSLuw

reports I saw indicate that he has a skull fracture in addition to a possible basilur skull fracture.

post wreck image, blood warning in effect http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc278/flood1_01/MassasHelment.jpg

I really hope he comes back from this, that kind of injury could be career ending

damn, he's really lucky! I saw it live on speed this morning but didn't get any better info than that he caught a spring in the head and then later that he had a skull fracture. 2 inches lower and he's sleeping with Senna and would have orphaned his unborn child. Hope he makes it back from that, but i'd say his season is done for sure, and he's made enough that perhaps its time to walk away... That would also make Ferrari's driver situation for next year a lot clearer with Alonso coming on board nearly a 100% certainty, just keep the Kimster on for the last year of his contract before he goes to the WRC full time.

In reply to pigeon:

I wish Massa a speedy and full recovery.

It amazes me that someone could survive a blow to the helmet like that.

It amazes me that ANYone would call that "lucky". That is about the least lucky thing in the world. It would only be less lucky if he had been helmetless or if it had been a spike that somehow hit him directly in the heart.

Lucky. Sheesh.

Lucky in that a few inches lower and its in his face.

Brust wrote: It amazes me that ANYone would call that "lucky". That is about the least lucky thing in the world. It would only be less lucky if he had been helmetless or if it had been a spike that somehow hit him directly in the heart. Lucky. Sheesh.

Brust, it's a freaky sport. Senna may have died because a suspension arm fragment entered the helmet visor. Six inches either side, and he may have survived the head trauma caused by the rest of the front suspension banging him in the head. The hemmorage may have killed him before the doctors got a chance to treat him for the skull fractures, especially since it took so long for any medical personnel to get to the crash in the first place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Ayrton_Senna

And just last week, Henry Surtees (John's son) was killed by a loose wheel striking him directly upon the head in the cockpit.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motorsport/5873060/Henry-Surtees-death-shakes-motorsport-world.html

Massa IS lucky. He may be in coma (medically induced, but for good reason), but he's in hospital, rather than in the morgue.

I love this sport, sometimes more than anything else in the world...but I realize that we're not just collecting stamps here. Taking automobiles to the absolute limits of their ability is a hazardous thing to do, whether it's someone running a modified street car in SCCA or NASA, or if it's someone riding in one of the finest machines on the face of the planet. We're all working as hard as we can to protect ourselves, but there is no way to escape the fact that you can die doing this-regardless of how much we'd like to ignore talking about it. IMO, talking about it gives our "enemies" ammo when they attempt to shut us down..but when things like this happen, we must abandon our fear about threats from the outside-and be honest with each other.

Motor racing is the most honest sport in the world. To be successful, you must be honest about your level of ability, your level of desire, and yes...even about what can happen when you're out there. To do anything less is to dishonor us all.

I don't call Felipe Massa "lucky" on a whim. I've seen other people with similar injuries die, and often die instantly. I don't mean to disrespect your POV-but from my own, the man is the luckiest racer in the world right now.

I hate to say it out loud, but I guess we'll see over the next couple of days if his luck continues. I hope it does, with every fiber of my being.

I get what Brust is saying. All the other racers were the lucky ones. They DIDN'T get hit in the head by a random car part. But having been hit in the head by a spring, Masa is really really lucky it happened the way it did.

Totally bizzare. Godspeed on his recovery.

I didn't think anything of it when i watched qualy yesterday. I figured he was safe and well. I actually thought about the mechanics working to swap that powertrain into a new chassis.

I hope he gets better quickly.

How many of us use helmets that are nowhere near as good as what those guys get? State-of-the-art, solid unobtanium, and not still quite strong enough.

Scary stuff. Best wishes for a speedy and complete recovery.

It's wild how these cars a made to withstands incredible stresses during a wreck that can have a car disintegrate and leave the driver unharmed, yet the helmet is the weakest point.

You don't really consider that at 160MPH how such a little piece of metal becomes the same thing as a projectile being thrown that is nearly 10x as heavy as a baseball, sharpened, and thrown twice as fast.

I'm thinking the helmet did it's job. Otherwise that piece of steel would have ended up imbedded in the headrest, and it would have been game over. At those speeds, a bit of metal flying through the air has a tremendous force.

Hope he recovers soon.

Did they say where the spring came from? I mean, a spring bouncing off the middle of a race track seems rather odd. Unless it was the car in-front.

They said the spring came off of Barichello's car. It was the high speed compression spring. I hope that he does get better and my prayers are to him and his family.

When I first read it, I'm thinking the result of some crash. Nope, a spring flying around the track. Yes, it's better that he got it in the helmet, but what are the quantifiable chances of being hit by a stinking spring ? Come up with the number, and you sir, will find that he was indeed unlucky.

Had it been a gear or an errant header pipe, it would have lain on the track so he could drive around it. If you look at the slow motion on-board video, you will see that it was still bouncing when it came into the open cockpit at 170 MPH.

Classic example of a "freak" accident.

That helmet did it's job. From what I have read, the shield area of his head is where he is injured.

It amazes me how many people think nothing of riding a motorcycle without a helmet. I hit my head so hard that I was having blackouts a week later after a freak 30 mph street bike crash.

Very sad news. Guarantee that those spring mounts will get redesigned and/or tethered in the future. The spring/helmet incursion is getting all of the attention, but the basal skull fracture is likely to be the more serious issue. It means his head tried to separate from his spine. Probably the result of extreme negative acceleration into the tire barrier. Supposedly, the spring knocked him out, such that he did little, if anything, to slow the vehicle before impact. Some say they saw wheel lock right before the impact, so he may have regained consciousness right before hitting the barrier. A basilar skull fracture is what killed Earnhardt. NASCAR blamed Simpson, but those in the know claim that Earnhardt like to wear his belts loose. NASCAR wasn't about to put the blame on Earnhardt. The big story here will be Massa's recovery and the HANS device. Every racer must prepare for "worst case scenario". More often than not, worst case scenario is a freak accident.

it may have only been instinct, but you can see he was full on the brakes and full on the throttle at the same time...

( the throttle and brake lights on the on board telemetry on the screen )

Watching the incident yesterday it was clear he was knocked out by the initial impact. He never steered at all from when he got hit until when he hit the tire wall, going straight across the grass when the track bent right before the left turn. Once in the asphalt runoff the front brakes are locked but the car just skipped across and into the barrier. I wonder of a gravel trap would have been more effective in slowing him down?

And I agree that he was extremely unlucky to have collected that spring that fell off Rubens' car but at the same time lucky that he caught it where he did.

Rusty_Rabbit84 wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0ltCJXSLuw

Video not availible in your country due to copyright restrictions?