I was there. I ran in it. I think I finished 2nd in class but I dunno if
I'll ever know for sure.
One - It was NOT an SCCA event. Organizer was the Council of Motorsports
Clubs, Rocky Mountain Region. They have done a similar event for 11 years in
Cheyenne, Wyo. I went because it seemed like a unique and fun event, and
indeed it was all the time I was running. The people of Hastings were
wonderful and having a good time. I was loaded up, waiting for trophies, and
bench racing with spectators when the accident happened.
Two - it was not a race as we know the term, it was a street autocross.
Three - The injured were actual spectators. 13 injured, eight hospitalized,
none life-threatening.
Four - I would not exactly call it a "high-speed autocross" -- I had four
2-1 downshifts on the course and only reached 3rd gear once, and that only
briefly on my final two runs of nine (two reruns) -- but that also was right
where the accident happened. It was the fastest single piece of the course.
Most of the streetcorner turns were bog slow, and so getting through them
efficiently was a real challenge. In fact, the turn this straightaway
approached (what I called the first Teardrop) was THE single most difficult
turn (and slowest) of the entire course (I blew it on each of my three tries
at my second run Saturday -- nothing spectacular, just could not get the
front tires to bite). It was not, BTW, the turn that was the problem here.
The driver in question lost control on a straight, apparently as he came
across the intersection a block earlier. He was driving a Firebird in CMC's
"SBT" class (B Stock, but on street tires). I think I know who the driver
was, but as it has not been announced officially I am not going to hazard a
guess that could be wrong -- but if it is who I think it is, it is a
non-SCCA member from Casper, Wyo, who has presumably driven in the Cheyenne
event before.
I saw one report that he was apparently "looking at the crowd" when he lost
it. That struck a note with me. When I was driving I never saw the crowd,
never saw all the marker flags, never saw the signs and poles along the
sidewalks or the street lights changing. Racer's tunnel vision, nothing
existed outside of the pylons. I tried to look at that radar number once,
but it was too far away to make out before I had to focus on the turn (wife
said I hit 50). I did see one spectator, the fellow who walked across the
course in the second "teardrop" turn as I was approaching. In retrospect, he
had just cleared my actual path of my travel and I could have continued, but
at the time I just thought "human: stop!" and I did. That gave me my second
rerun.
It is easy to use the 20/20 of hindsight to point a finger, so I hope I can
avoid that. These were good people doing the event, sponsoring the event,
even spectating and enjoying the event. I could see a lot of care in the
course setup where obviously there was concern at keeping speeds at safe
levels in all the turns. The accident happened on a straight, where we
normally think we are safest. Our prayers are with the victims.
At the (low) speeds we were going on MOST of the course, there were several
spins elsewhere and all but one were just harmless loops in the middle of
the street (one gal hit a light pole). And, at those speeds, had anyone gone
toward the edge, he would have hit a curb, maybe broke a wheel, but stopped.
Where the accident happened there was a Texaco service station right there.
No curb. The car slid right up the drive and impacted one of the
roof-support bollards protecting the gas pumps from just such an incident.
It worked.
Most links I have seen posted are no longer up. For more information try
these, from which came virtually all the post-event info I know:
www.hastingstribune.com (most recent story)
www.hastingslink.com (go to news/local)
www.msnbc.com/local/khas/m216693.asp (earlier story on victims)
www.spady.com/motorsportmile/index.asp (there's a course map there --
accident was at the lefthander at 3rd & Denver)
Nothing is on www.cmcrmr.com -- likely the organizers are not even home yet.
--Rocky Entriken
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