https://www.americanrallyassociatio...ss-of-driver-neil-thomas-during-nemadji-rally I didn't know Neil, it was only his 3rd race as a driver (he had one as a codriver last year). In a fox body Mustang SVO. I was at the next marshal point after the crash. We heard the familiar echoes of a rally car in the woods, the horrific boom (reminded me of the cannon at the Ren Fest when they can sell alcohol), followed by a deafening silence. We heard the next car on stage start, drive at speed for awhile, and then slow down and stop. And then start again at speed. They stopped in front of us and the driver frantically said, "call for help". The radio was already flooded with chatter about it, ambulance already moving. I had my 6 year old daughter with me, so I pretty quickly suggested we go into the motorhome and have a coloring contest. I saw 2 ambulances, 2 Sheriff Tahoes, as well as all the medical and sweep vehicles (traveling against the rally direction, as the event was already stopped). My uncle came back to the motorhome and said the event was canceled and we could head back. Knowing the ambulances had not left yet, I knew that was likely not good. For those not in the know, this is 3 deaths in competition in the US in the last 4ish months. 2 drivers and 1 codriver. All privateers in "slow" cars. Before that, I believe there had only been 1 in 20+ years.
Sad. That seems like an excessive amount of deaths for such a short amount of time(4months)? Are more inexperienced people pushing harder? Have the rules/regs changed or something?
I don't really follow rally in the slightest other than knowing I think it's cool and would want to go watch sometime. Would never have guessed there's a RWD class. Especially with foxbody Mustangs... That's wild.
Sorry to hear. Motorsports is dangerous enough without running amongst the trees. Bright spot is his co-driver was hospitalized with non life threatening injuries. https://www.ewrc-results.com/profile/334129-neil-thomas-carlinschauer/ Interesting choice of a rally car.
Generally rally in the US is less structured at the grassroots level. More or less as long as you have the safety equipment, you can run most any kind of car you wish. ARA, which sanctioned the event in question this year, has Open 4WD, Naturally Aspirated 4WD, Limited 4WD, Open 2WD and Limited 2WD classes. Fox body Mustangs are not super common, but not unheard of either. They're cheap power platforms, but have a lot of limitations that make them less than ideal on gravel. They have been rallied successfully by some, but generally it takes a massive amount of skill to offset the shortcomings (see Mike Hurst, Mark Utecht). Older BMWs generally make better RWD rally cars. There are generally three rallies in MN - Headwaters in the spring/early summer, Ojibwe Forests in the late summer, and Nemadji Trail in the late fall/early winter. Headwaters and Nemadji are regional-only and generally don't get the real $$$$$$ builds. This year it included some WRX, STI and Imprezas as well as a couple of BMWs, an Eclipse, and a couple of VWs in addition to the Mustang. I used to be part of the team that put on this event (and was even the chair one year when it was run in the spring and a late thaw caused the DNR to pull the road permit). Competed in it a couple of times in a '91 Nissan SE-R.
That is sad and pretty upsetting that there has been such an increase in deaths lately. But watching some of the crazy rally videos its not too surprising, going that fast on the limit in a tunnel of trees that aren't going to get out of your way or cushion your impact much... I love watching but I don't think I could do it myself.
To be honest, I have done stuff that was far more dangerous on the open road than anything I did on a rally stage. And probably so have most of you. Driving a car or being near cars is inherently dangerous, we just tend to ignore the familiar dangers.
...we just tend to ignore the familiar dangers. -This! Which broadly applies across our lives in every respect.
My friend Ted stated his theory to me earlier which kind of aligns with this above idea. He called it the “playground theory” though. His thought is that playgrounds used to be dangerous. And most of us would play in a way that reflected the “respect” that we had for the dangers. Nowadays playgrounds are pretty much bubble wrapped and you would have to almost try to injure yourself. In his theory, because rally cages and protection devices are so good, his thought is that drivers are having to push harder and harder to get to the podiums. And because of the “sense of security” around them, pushing past their own limitations and the vehicles limitations has become more common place.(just his theory)
It is very strange, and a topic of much discussion/speculation in the rally community this year. I started crewing for Carl and the Ziptie Rally Team in 2009, and jumped in the deep end in 2010 as crew chief and running many national rallies in Open Class (turbo AWD). I am not nearly as well-versed in the current rule books, though. The cages have not gotten less safe. The cars have not gotten much faster (aero, suspension, brake, and tire technology has improved, but only the top tier cars are taking advantage. These were all privateer crashes). Yes, these crashes were largely novice drivers, but from what I've seen they were not pushing really hard. But mistakes happen, and an experienced driver conceivably would be able to handle it better/quicker (I don't know enough about the circumstances of the August crash, or this weekends, to say whether that would have made a difference. The middle one was steering knuckle failure causing a loss of steering). The only major difference I see, is the number of stage miles and number of cars. 10ish years ago at the end of Rally America, we had 5 or 6 events on the National Calendar (2 days, ~15 stages), and a handful of regional. All struggling to get enough entries to even hold the events. This year we had 8 national events through ARA and 14 regional. And a decent NASA colander, too. Pretty much always reaching the maximum number of entries. There are so many drivers driving at so many events. More incidences are somewhat inevitable. But we still went from 1 in 20+ years, to 3 in a few months. That just totally boggles my mind. I just hope someone smarter and more experienced than me is looking closely at the cars, any footage, etc. to try to determine if there's something that needs to be changed.
