Sharing this from the SCCA:
The Sports Car Club of America® is saddened to announce the passing of two Club members — Amber Dawn Jorgensen and Des Toups — following an incident at a ProSolo® event held at the former Hampton Mills facility in Packwood, WA, July 14-16.
On Sunday morning, July 16, a vehicle in the competition continued past …
Terrible news, we are really sad about this and we didn't even know these people but they are fellow SCCA members and autocrossers and it hits home
In reply to loosecannon :
It does hit home. They were fellow members of our community.
My condolences to their families and friends
It sounds like perhaps the driver had a medical episode; it's absolutely gutting.
It was only by a fluke of life circumstances that I was not at this event, which has been a regular on my calendar for 5 years. My wife and I were in Packwood three short weeks ago at the last local event, and a large number of the people at the Tour and ProSolo were there as well including Des, who we have raced with and known for years and years.
The circumstances were nothing short of tragic and the whole community up here in the Pacific Northwest is reeling today. Words are inadequate to express the pain and grief being felt by the witnesses, attendees, and their families and friends.
Thank you for posting this. I start to get too comfortable at our events, and even if this was medical, the potential weighs on me a bit.
My condolences to families and loved ones.
Tom1200 said:It sounds like perhaps the driver had a medical episode; it's absolutely gutting.
That is the preliminary theory. I can say that from a safety standpoint, there really wasn't anything that could have been done differently. Medical incidents can happen any time, and if it happens on course, the car and driver are going to impact whatever they are pointed at eventually.
I have witnessed several medical incidents at races, including autocross. This time it just so happened to include an innocent bystander.
I cut ties with this org about 5 years ago due to their lax safety standards. I like being right, but not like this.
Des and I competed against each other in a local street-tire class for newbs years ago. He was just... a helluva nice guy.
He was also an automotive journalist (he once brought a press car, a VW luxo-barge Audi-wannabe that they sold, like, 12 of, to an event, which was pretty hilarious). Google says he'd recently been editing auto-related content.
My heart goes out to the families and to the PNW SCCA community.
In reply to Javelin :
With a seasoned driver like that it's the only explanation.
My heart goes out to the entire community there.
We were there. I pitted right next to Des, in fact I accidently crowded his spot because he was out getting breakfast in his car. We joked about it. Little did I realize it would be the last time we spoke. I should have told him how good it was to see a familiar face. He liked to make good natured jokes about the ratty state of my car. I like jokes about my car.
I have a lot of complicated thoughts about this and it's important they are expressed correctly. The organization is made up of people that are my close friends. We are all in shock, and in mourning. I don't want to talk about anything just yet other than how incredibly sad this is, and how traumatic it was for those involved.
It is important to understand just how violent and horrific this was. If you weren't there, or even if you were, be thoughtful with your words. There are people involved in organizing this event who will undoubtedly feel guilt and some level of responsibility. My heart breaks for all of them. Nobody set out that day intending to put lives at risk. I'm certain of that.
I'm so sorry for everybody that has been personally affected by this tragedy.
Tom1200 said:With a seasoned drive like that it's the only explanation.
No, it's really not.
Tom1200 said:In reply to Javelin :
With a seasoned drive like that it's the only explanation.
My heart goes out to the entire community there.
I raced and chatted with Des three weeks ago and he mentioned being on new medication, which is something that I have had to deal with myself. We had a lot of heat exhaustion going on with workers with our weather right now as well. Des was driving a brand new Elantra N (you can see it in my YouTube video from the event three weeks ago) so a mechanical like stuck throttle is very unlikely, not to mention he went straight off (no steering, no braking). We won't know until the autopsy, but signs are pointing to something that was out of everyone's control, including Des's.
Brutal weekend for motorsports. I was guessing medical incident or perhaps stuck throttle? We had a car show awhile back with an SCCA display, we watched someone in a T-bucket get all kinds of crazy coming from a light and ended up crashing through the fence at WPAFB. I was surprised how long it took the military to respond to that one.
Des literally gave our ZX2 to Craig and me--all we had to do was pay for the shipping from Seattle to Milwaukee, and of course, promise him a seat in the car if he ever wanted to use it. He had it as a half-built STS car at the time, and had redirected his focus into something else and wanted to see it go to a good home to get "finished".
He was gracious beyond words and genuinely one of the nicest people I have ever met.
This is an early photo the 1st seaon we ran the car here in Milwaukee...
Obviously I didn't know anyone involved, but my heart goes out to their families and friends. Hopefully some of them will see the kind words being posted in this thread.
RIP and my condolences to all who were affected. In June I was at an event where driver had passed away on track and was a long member of the series. He was airlifted and I didn’t know anything at the time (rumor was he was okay) until the next day the news came out he had died. When ever there is a serious accident I think about what a stupid way to leave my family, however I remind myself that I could walk out of my house and be ran over. I am always appreciative of the volunteers and the fact that a helicopter landed right on track to try and save him (this particular track had the accessibility). Sometimes things just happen, however I am greatly appreciative to the racing community there really isn’t any better. Sounds like we unfortunately lost some great members.
Javelin said:Medical incidents can happen any time, and if it happens on course, the car and driver are going to impact whatever they are pointed at eventually.
Or even things they're not pointed at, you can only manage where a car will go in case of a medical incident with physical barriers...
AClockworkGarage said:This post has received too many downvotes to be displayed.
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I cut ties with this org about 5 years ago due to their lax safety standards. I like being right, but not like this.
This down vote/hide is why I changed my screen name.
That comment is insensitive to most, especially to those who've competed with the departed or run that site, but we play with 1 and 2 ton rocket ships, compared to how fast we can run and get out of the way.
We need to see it, and that pain should make us think.
I don't know the site or the people, but death sucks (I just lost my dad 3 weeks ago, so it's fresh), and if that comment makes the difference in where the course finish line is set up, maybe it's just property damage next time.
My heart goes out to the families of the two people lost. Lives changed in an instant, grief that'll jam them up for a long while.
ГУЛАГ мальчик УР следующий said:AClockworkGarage said:This post has received too many downvotes to be displayed.
Show/hide post
I cut ties with this org about 5 years ago due to their lax safety standards. I like being right, but not like this.
This down vote/hide is why I changed my screen name.
That comment is insensitive to most, especially to those who've competed with the departed or run that site, but we play with 1 and 2 ton rocket ships, compared to how fast we can run and get out of the way.
We need to see it, and that pain should make us think.
I don't know the site or the people, but death sucks (I just lost my dad 3 weeks ago, so it's fresh), and if that comment makes the difference in where the course finish line is set up, maybe it's just property damage next time.
My heart goes out to the families of the two people lost. Lives changed in an instant, grief that'll jam them up for a long while.
I don't know if the organization that ties were cut with is the National SCCA (who ran this event) or the Northwest Region SCCA (who were the host club) or the Oregon Region SCCA (who were the other host club). I run with all 3, and have not seen a safety issue that wasn't addressed in recent memory.
Some sites have to have compromises due to their layout/size, and Packwood is no different, especially with ProSolo. That being said, this was in no way a safety issue. The finish line conformed to all safety regulations and had ample space between it and anything else. The medical incident just happened to have occurred closer to the end of the run with the car facing a building.
As for the post and up/down votes, remember that it's not the hosts downvoting and silencing, it's us the users. A sufficient number of people found that post insensitive, inappropriate, or irrelevant enough to down vote it into hiding. While I don't agree with the sentiment, I did not down vote it. And while this tragedy was not a safety lapse, I agree that we should take the lessons about unforseen issues and apply them to safety because it's easy to get lax out there.
Heard about this but no idea what happened. Very sad and terrible to hear. My condolences.
Here's some context for people unfamiliar with Packwood. This is obviously a doodle and not to scale, this is just to show the general scope.
The timing trailer is teal with the twin mirror courses in yellow. The red is the trajectory and ending of the incident.
Sometimes when it rains, it pours. This past weekend feels like that.
Erin Kelly at NEFR, Amber Dawn Jorgensen and Des Toups here and over the weekend I received an email from BMW club racing that one of their drivers/stewards, Todd Newcomer was killed in a traffic incident on the way to the event at Summit point (his wife was seriously injured in it too).
That's a lot of family, friends and communities grieving, my heart goes out to them.
I'll provide context then, so it can be downvoted as well.
There exists within autocross a culture of "you didn't see nothing" Any time there is an incident people are strongly discouraged from taking photos video or talking about it because "we could lose the site" The illusion that autocross is a perfect;y safe hobby has to be maintained so that outsiders will let us race on their property. The problem with this illusion is that people start to believe it. Then complacency sets in.
The org in question is the NWR-SCCA. I was working course and a vehicle lost control and spun through my work station, narrowly avoiding hitting me. A racing incident, not a big deal really. I radioed in the four-off, reset the cones and got back to work. The org has a rule that if a car leaves the racing surface for any reason it's a dq and you are parked for the day. 10 minutes later the same car come racing by again. after the session had ended I went to find the people in charge to make sure that had heard that there was a four-off. The safety steward told me "they knew, but it was ok because they weren't driving dangerously and that I needed to stop worrying about it." I'd disagree, driver fault or not I did have to run to avoid being struck by a car which then left the racing surface. They're your rules, if you're not going to enforce them then why have them? The steward's nonchalant attitude towards a very legitimate grievance was enough for me to withdraw from the rest of the season's events. If they didn't start taking safety seriously somebody is going to get killed.
I was not at this event but two of my best friends were at this event. One of them was in the latrines less than a minute earlier.
Maybe this was a medical condition, I don't know. none of us do. but writing it off as a "medical, trsgic but what could be done?" is the same complacency that got us here in the first place. I feel for the victims, their families and my former fellow competitors. You're feelings are valid. but let's not fall into the same old situation where we pretend what we do isn't a game with life and death stakes.
You can't prevent all incidents, but some forethought can mitigate them. Look at the course design and ask yourself are their safe run-off points? are there areas around the competitive surface that should be off limits when the course is hot? should we really be placing the latrines immediacy behind the stop box? This was an extremely expensive wake up call.
At the last event I attended in Bremmerton a car left the racing surface, skidded across a hundred feet of wet grass and crashed ass-first through a fence onto an active airfield. We were told not to take pictures because we might lose the site. If anyone ever races at Packwood again, I'll eat my hat.
You may think I'm insensitive but i'm the only one saying the things that really need to be said. I'm not ignoring the fact that two real actual people are gone. I'm hyper aware of it.
AClockworkGarage said:I'll provide context then, so it can be downvoted as well.
There exists within autocross a culture of "you didn't see nothing" Any time there is an incident people are strongly discouraged from taking photos video or talking about it because "we could lose the site" The illusion that autocross is a perfect;y safe hobby has to be maintained so that outsiders will let us race on their property. The problem with this illusion is that people start to believe it. Then complacency sets in.
The org in question is the NWR-SCCA. I was working course and a vehicle lost control and spun through my work station, narrowly avoiding hitting me. A racing incident, not a big deal really. I radioed in the four-off, reset the cones and got back to work. The org has a rule that if a car leaves the racing surface for any reason it's a dq and you are parked for the day. 10 minutes later the same car come racing by again. after the session had ended I went to find the people in charge to make sure that had heard that there was a four-off. The safety steward told me "they knew, but it was ok because they weren't driving dangerously and that I needed to stop worrying about it." I'd disagree, driver fault or not I did have to run to avoid being struck by a car which then left the racing surface. They're your rules, if you're not going to enforce them then why have them? The steward's nonchalant attitude towards a very legitimate grievance was enough for me to withdraw from the rest of the season's events. If they didn't start taking safety seriously somebody is going to get killed.
I was not at this event but two of my best friends were at this event. One of them was in the latrines less than a minute earlier.
Maybe this was a medical condition, I don't know. none of us do. but writing it off as a "medical, trsgic but what could be done?" is the same complacency that got us here in the first place. I feel for the victims, their families and my former fellow competitors. You're feelings are valid. but let's not fall into the same old situation where we pretend what we do isn't a game with life and death stakes.
You can't prevent all incidents, but some forethought can mitigate them. Look at the course design and ask yourself are their safe run-off points? are there areas around the competitive surface that should be off limits when the course is hot? should we really be placing the latrines immediacy behind the stop box? This was an extremely expensive wake up call.At the last event I attended in Bremmerton a car left the racing surface, skidded across a hundred feet of wet grass and crashed ass-first through a fence onto an active airfield. We were told not to take pictures because we might lose the site. If anyone ever races at Packwood again, I'll eat my hat.
You may think I'm insensitive but i'm the only one saying the things that really need to be said. I'm not ignoring the fact that two real actual people are gone. I'm hyper aware of it.
I see no reason to downvote this and I agree with you that regardless of whether or not this was a safety-related incident, we should look at safety in general and this site in particular for lessons learned.
I have definitely felt the "you didn't see anything and don't post photos" at multiple sites and clubs. I witnessed a wheel come off of an orange SRT-4 at Packwood, a supercharged fox Mustang climb the pit wall at PIR South, a Formula SAE catch fire (that I put out) at PIR North, a stuck throttle on a 240SX that resulted in a mounted boulder twenty yards off course at PIR North, and of course the infamous GT3 spin into the parked cars paddock at PIR North. All but the last were kept offline and we were very much encouraged by those in charge to keep it that way.
I did not know about the 4-wheel-off rule at NWR SCCA, and if it was in place the last time I raced with them (4 seasons ago) then I do not remember it. At first reaction, I want to shout "that's a dumb rule, cars go 4 off at autocross all the time without an issue" but really thinking about, and in particular the Packwood event 3 weeks ago, I think it's got potential to be a good rule. We had the same car/driver spin and go 4 off at least 3 runs that weekend and a number of close calls with corner workers and cars leaving course.
As for this particular course, the finish (which had a slalom element) was well back from the buildings and both the exits for each lane and the entrance for cars coming from grid (which is in the building on the left) were in between the finish and the latrines and building. There was at least 150 feet from the end of the finish area to the impact area.
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