Bizzare racing accident

[AtomicLabMonkey]

This is one of the freakiest racing accidents I have ever heard of.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nascar/news;...v=ap&type=lgns

Driver may have been unconscious in dragster
By SHAUN SCHAFER, Associated Press Writer
April 8, 2005

TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- Racer Michelle ``Shelly'' Howard may have lost consciousness and been unable to cut the fuel firing the engine of her dragster before it flipped over and shot backward, killing her and her son.

During a Saturday night test run, Howard's rear-engine dragster suffered a ``blowover,'' where all four wheels left the surface, Tulsa Raceway Park said Friday in a statement.

Howard, 59, apparently took her foot off the accelerator when the car went airborne at the 1/8-mile mark on the track.

``As the dragster became vertical, it rotated 180 degrees on its axis and then touched down on all four wheels and against the wall with the car now facing the starting line,'' the raceway said. ``The impact of the dragster to the pavement could have been enough to cause Shelly Howard to lose consciousness.''

The racetrack said the veteran driver never hit the engine's kill switch, deployed parachutes or turned off the fuel supply to the motor.

``At that point, either the throttle stuck wide open, or Shelly's foot jammed the throttle down,'' the raceway said.

Tulsa police estimated the car was traveling 250 mph when it struck a chase car parked behind the starting line with her 36-year-old son, Brian, in the back seat.

The force of the impact hurled the vehicles 150 feet through a fence and into a drainage area. Both Howards were thrown from their vehicles and pronounced dead at the scene. Because of extensive damage to the dragster and its onboard ``black box,'' it is impossible to determine exactly what happened.

An investigation by the Tulsa Police Department ruled the two deaths an accident.

Shelly Howard was a three-time national event winner in the rival National Hot Rod Association and a regional champion in 2001 and 2003. She raced in Division 4, which includes Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas.

Howard raced in a category of vehicles one notch below the zenith in the sport, the Top Fuel dragster. Howard, who started racing in 1978, had won the Division 4 season-opening event three weeks earlier in Houston.

I got an e-mail forwarded with an eyewitness account from someone that was standing at the start box. Everyone had to literally run for their lives when they realized the car was coming back uptrack at them WOT... crazy stuff. Yet another reminder that racing is dangerous, and to keep on your toes when at any track...

[Nick Koan]

Wow. I think seeing a top fuel dragster coming at straight at me at WOT when it isn't supposed to be is on my list of things I hope to never experience.

[MattR]

OMG! I could not imagine seeing that car heading back towards the Start...wow.

[sperry]

I read about that on Yahoo or somewhere right after it happened. But the article I read didn't explain what happened, except to say that the driver and her son died. I figured the car just blew up on the line or something while her son (who was her crew) was next to it. The details are crazy as hell!

Also, how do you get "thrown clear" of a dragster that you're strapped into!? I can understand the son in the chase car getting tossed, but damn!

[MattR]

Originally Posted by sperry

..."thrown clear" of a dragster that you're strapped into!? I can understand the son in the chase car getting tossed, but damn!

I can only guess that the car came apart or something..wow

[AtomicLabMonkey]

Originally Posted by sperry

Also, how do you get "thrown clear" of a dragster that you're strapped into!? I can understand the son in the chase car getting tossed, but damn!

From the description in the e-mail it sounds like the impact was so high energy that the two cars just exploded into high speed shrapnel, basically there wasn't much left.

First off let me say that I hesitated posting this on here so I sent this
> to
> Carl first and he felt that it would help people with closure, recognizing
> danger being close to the track and to help people understand what
> happened
> rather than trying to put together bits and pieces 3rd and 4th hand.
>
> I did this write-up in responce to another message board that I frequent
> as
> they were trying to put the bit of news articles together to figure out
> what
> happened becuase the news wasn't very accurate or complete. So here is the
> write up I did to address that thread.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------
> Shelly Howard lived here in Tulsa. Here husband is a doctor here in town.
> They haven't been down the Tulsa track in years because the facility was
> sub
> par and wouldn't have held the power. But just last year the track was
> purchased and several million dollars have been put into the track to make
> it a National Event level track. Mike Edwards, from the Tulsa area, V
> Gaines
> and a bunch of Comp Eliminator cars have been renting the track recently
> and
> they have proven that the new facility will hold the power. Mike Edwards
> matched his, I think #2, qualifying spot from Gainesville just a few weeks
> ago at the Tulsa facility. So the track has now been proven to be a good
> track for testing of the Pro class cars.
>
> About week or 2 ago they had a small wreck in their TAD, no one was hurt
> and
> the car didn't roll or anything but she did brush the wall, I think it was
> pretty close to the starting line, but it did bend the chassis. The car
> from
> this past weekend was a brand new car and the first time it was taken to
> the
> track. They just finished putting it together at 4:30pm that day and they
> came out to do some testing.
>
> First pass she picked the front end of the car up about 5 foot and set is
> down. The Second pass she made about a 300 foot pass and shut it off. I
> think she had some serious tire shake and eventually broke the tires
> loose.
>
> The Third pass, I was in the fenced in area just behind the tower side
> lane
> and about 20 feet behind the burn out box. It's a spectator access area
> that
> allows the spectators to get close to the cars as they pull into the burn
> out box or in a Pro car situation to watch them start up the motors. So we
> were about 10 feet to the side of the crew car, Saturn Stationwagon, and
> about 15 feet from the TAD as they were starting it.
>
> It was getting real cool so they had the intake and injector lines covered
> with a blanket. They took it off and handed it to Shelly's son, he pulled
> it
> into the back seat of the car and made room for the rest of crew once they
> were ready to go down track. So he was in the back seat holding the
> blanket,
> I can't confirm this and it really doesn't matter but someone told me that
> he was mentally handicapped but still helped out the crew.
>
> She launched hard and went straight, all the candles lit and looked to be
> on
> a low 5 sec, 270mph pass, when somewhere between the 1/8 and 1000 ft mark
> the front end of the car caught some air and it did a blow over landing on
> it's top and slid through the finish line. The clocks showed 6.53 at
> 115mph.
> So she was on a fast pass.
>
> I wasn't able to tell what happened after she landed on her top because of
> all the smoke, sparks and flames. I just assumed she was barrel rolling
> but
> when she finally stopped her down track movement she was about 500 foot
> pass
> the finish line she ended right side up, and that make some sense because
> the wing and the motor would keep it from landing up side down and the low
> center of gravity would try to make the car end up right side up.
>
> We could still hear the motor running but it sounded as if it was flooding
> over and fouling out plugs and was about to die. But then it started
> clearing up and picking up RPM. At this time most of us just thought that
> she was in the car on it's side and on fire because we could see fire, a
> few
> of her crew actually started to run down the track, they only made it to
> about the Christmas tree. When all of a sudden we hear the motor go to WOT
> (wide open throttle) fire coming out of the headers. It was an injection
> motor not a blower and I think they run like 50% nitro so it was lit up.
> We
> still didn't realize that the car was rolling. I actually thought the
> motor
> had broken free from the car and was just about to explode (I know that
> doesn't make any sense but that's what came to my mind).
>
> About that time we could see that something was headed back this way but
> from the smoke we couldn't tell exactly what was going on (who would ever
> in
> their right mind think the the car would be heading back down the track).
> Everyone just stopped and watched trying to figure out what was going on
> when all of a sudden everyone realized. It was up right and heading back
> down the track in the same lane it went down in and was at WOT, nitro
> flames
> coming out of header just like they were when she left. We kept thinking
> that it would hit the wall, go over and stop but it didn't.
>
> We actually don't think it hit the wall until around the 100 foot mark. So
> it was on a straight on pass WOT. I waited until the car got to the 60
> foot
> mark when everyone started running for their lives, it was just over
> 100foot
> from where we were standing. We had started moving behind the tower
> thinking
> that would protect us but then we thought otherwise and started running.
> We
> could actually see the car through the tower because the front and the
> side
> are glass so we were for the most part protected from the car and were
> still
> watching it come.
>
> The car still at full throttle brushed off the wall, which just
> straightened
> it up and hit their crew car at what had to be 250mph plus, head on. It
> was
> on the left side of the tower lane. It and the dragster just disintegrated
> and went thru the retaining wall which was about 30 foot past where the
> crew
> car was parked. Her son was apparently still in the car, but there
> probably
> wasn't enough time to get out once everyone knew the car was coming back
> at
> us. The dragster and the car ended up about 20 foot past the retaining
> wall.
> So the impact of the car and the retaining the wall stopped a 250mph
> dragster within 50 - 70 feet, that in itself was amazing.
>
> The retaining wall did have about a 10 inch I-beam and it was laid over
> and
> the metal siding was gone. It appeared that the pit car flew over the wall
> and the dragster went threw the wall.
>
> Myself and one other guy ran down into the wreckage and I stopped once I
> got
> close to the fires fearing that it was about to explode, many fires were
> going, but the other guys went another 15 foot looking for the driver
> compartment.
>
> About that time the officials and the crew got there so I backed off and
> looked at the wreckage.
>
> It was dark but I couldn't recognize anything, just scrapes of metal
> everywhere. It was a horrifying experience and I left shortly after.
>
> Out of respect for the family and friends I won't go into any other
> details.
>
>
> The odds of all the combined things that happened to end up like this are
> mind boggling. I can't imagine what the family, friends and crew are going
> through. Neither my wife or I could sleep that night, it just kept playing
> over and over and over again in our heads. The fenced in area where I
> stood
> and watched it all until the car was about at the 60foot mark was
> destroyed,
> that way to close for me and think about how lucky I was and spent the
> next
> few days appreciating life...
>
> As we were running from the fenced in area and as the dragster hit the
> crew
> car parts were hitting us in the back of the head and then parts were
> falling from the sky, it was crazy.

[MattR]

Holy Shit,,,Unbelievable.

[dknv]

And this is one of the freakiest accident pictures I've ever seen showing workers (or people in general) in various states of awareness ...

http://www.sccaforums.com/ubb/ultima...p/topic/15/884

Edit: sorry, should have read the story at the link before cross-posting. The guy dies. View with discretion.

[MikeK]

Originally Posted by dknv

And this is one of the freakiest accident pictures I've ever seen showing workers (or people in general) in various states of awareness ...


http://www.sccaforums.com/ubb/ultima...p/topic/15/884

That is just scary!

[ryball]

Holy shit... wow...