Sounds like something bad just happened at Lime Rock...

It's kind of late in the evening for something like this:

http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/Massive-Emergency-Response-After-Crash-at-Lime-Rock-Park-322350721.html

Go Kart?

http://wtnh.com/2015/08/19/lifestar-responds-to-crash-at-lime-rock-park-racetrack/

Skip Barber school was the only thing on the schedule for today. Maybe someone mistook one of the formula cars for a kart? Not good in any case....

NBC said possible unauthorized use of the track.

Unauthorized use makes sense, that's kind of late for anything going on there. I've done a Skip Barber class up there, and we were done well before it was dark (and that was in the fall). I can't remember any light poles near the skidpad or the mini course they used for lapping.

Either way, sounds like something pretty serious to bring both helicopters out there.

Not only is it unusual for something to be going on up there that late, but I think that it is specifically banned. I'm pretty sure that a local noise ordinance says no race engines after 6pm.

Rumors suggest trespassing teens, stolen karts, predictable consequences.

It's hit TTAC:

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2015/08/possible-break-in-at-lime-rock-leads-to-crash-injuries/

Cue the lawyers.

car39 wrote: Cue the lawyers.

" Had your fence been bigger, My clients wouldn't have been able to scale the fence, break into the locked shed where the karts were stored... Steal gasoline from the locked shed where it was stored.. and then drive the wrong way around a race track without helmets mind you (there must be some sort of law against this) drive too fast then egregiously be injured by a tree that YOU planted in the wrong place, 300 feet off the track down a ravine accessible by the cart wheeling and out of control kart... Which by the way didn't have any lights on it and that's dangerous to be driving that late without lights"

Tinfoil hat brigade postulates that the teens are somehow connected to local developers looking for a way to NIMBY the track into the history books...

Some people are saying spinal injuries. I sure as hell hope that the families that lawyer up get told by the judge to go berkeley themselves.

car39 wrote: Cue the lawyers.

sad but true

http://www.foxsports.com/motor/story/lime-rock-park-endurance-karting-crash-break-in-082015

Two teenagers have been hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries after a serious crash Wednesday night at Lime Rock Park, reports the Hartford Courant. According to Jalopnik.com, a spokesperson for Lime Rock Park - a 1.5-mile road course in Connecticut - confirmed that five teenagers broke into the track Wednesday night, stole five Endurance Karting karts and then attempted to race them the wrong way around the main course. A crash occurred near the pit entry, with the Hartford Courant reporting that a 15-year-old female was taken by Life Star Helicopter to Connecticut Children’s Medical Center for head and torso injuries while a 15-year-old male was taken to Sharon Hospital with head and arm injuries. The crash did not take place during a scheduled event and state police are investigating the incident.

What about the other three? Who won?

fasted58 wrote: http://www.foxsports.com/motor/story/lime-rock-park-endurance-karting-crash-break-in-082015 Two teenagers have been hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries after a serious crash Wednesday night at Lime Rock Park, reports the Hartford Courant. According to Jalopnik.com, a spokesperson for Lime Rock Park - a 1.5-mile road course in Connecticut - confirmed that five teenagers broke into the track Wednesday night, stole five Endurance Karting karts and then attempted to race them the wrong way around the main course. A crash occurred near the pit entry, with the Hartford Courant reporting that a 15-year-old female was taken by Life Star Helicopter to Connecticut Children’s Medical Center for head and torso injuries while a 15-year-old male was taken to Sharon Hospital with head and arm injuries. The crash did not take place during a scheduled event and state police are investigating the incident. First responders noted that all participants were utter idiots

Fixed that for you.

Can we be honest with ourselves here? As teenagers, most of us would have loved to have pulled off a prank like this. What happened yesterday is a bad, bad thing on a number of levels, but that's what teens do. I remember drag-racing snowmobiles on an airport runway after they'd closed it down for snow. About halfway down the strip someone hit us with a massive spotlight. I was blinded and ended up crashing my snowmobile trying not to get caught. Real stupid, but it brings a smile to my face thirty years later.

Kreb wrote: Can we be honest with ourselves here? As teenagers, most of us would have loved to have pulled off a prank like this. What happened yesterday is a bad, bad thing on a number of levels, but that's what teens do. I remember drag-racing snowmobiles on an airport runway after they'd closed it down for snow. About halfway down the strip someone hit us with a massive spotlight. I was blinded and ended up crashing my snowmobile trying not to get caught. Real stupid, but it brings a smile to my face thirty years later.

Breaking and entering =/= a prank. I'm 16, and even I think that these young individuals and their families should be held accountable for their actions.

Kreb wrote: Can we be honest with ourselves here? As teenagers, most of us would have loved to have pulled off a prank like this. What happened yesterday is a bad, bad thing on a number of levels, but that's what teens do. I remember drag-racing snowmobiles on an airport runway after they'd closed it down for snow. About halfway down the strip someone hit us with a massive spotlight. I was blinded and ended up crashing my snowmobile trying not to get caught. Real stupid, but it brings a smile to my face thirty years later.

I've had to run from.the cops after bombing an active gravel pit on my mtb......I was probably 15.... But stolen property is where I draw the line.

In reply to Kreb:

Times... they have-a-changed since we were kids.

Teenagers and their 'they can do no wrong' parents obviously haven't kept up w/ that.

We just might have grown up in the best of times, not so anymore. Get w/ the program.

To be clear, I'm not sanctioning anything. Just saying that being sanctimonious about it may be a tad hypocritical. Put another way, if they hadn't crashed, how many of us would have thought "cool!"?

That said, it sounds like there's a strong probability that one or more participants were goaded into the act. It's one thing risking your own skin. It's quite another taking your girlfriend along for the ride. That's a hell of a lot harder to forgive.

Kreb wrote: Can we be honest with ourselves here? As teenagers, most of us would have loved to have pulled off a prank like this. What happened yesterday is a bad, bad thing on a number of levels, but that's what teens do. I remember drag-racing snowmobiles on an airport runway after they'd closed it down for snow. About halfway down the strip someone hit us with a massive spotlight. I was blinded and ended up crashing my snowmobile trying not to get caught. Real stupid, but it brings a smile to my face thirty years later.

Your prank was a victimless crime. These kids commited theft by stealing the karts and then wrecked property that was not their own. Hardly a victimless crime.

I am somewhat sympathetic to the lure of unattended equipment.

I may have "borrowed" a golf cart on a country club in the early morning hours after a kegger in the mid-80s a time or two. Possibly even a YZ-250 once that potentially could have been used to damage a green or four. I did not need a helo to save my life but the beating I got and slave labor as a grounds-keeper's bitch for the whole summer were not enough to make that memory any less funny to remember.

Kreb wrote: Can we be honest with ourselves here? As teenagers, most of us would have loved to have pulled off a prank like this. What happened yesterday is a bad, bad thing on a number of levels, but that's what teens do. I remember drag-racing snowmobiles on an airport runway after they'd closed it down for snow. About halfway down the strip someone hit us with a massive spotlight. I was blinded and ended up crashing my snowmobile trying not to get caught. Real stupid, but it brings a smile to my face thirty years later.

no way dude.

The difference is these kids parents are probably going to sue someone for what this "accident" costs them. My dad would have made me write an apology letter while I healed And made me mow everyone's lawn during every dry day lot moment of every weekend to earn money to repair the crashed carts.

Big difference....