2 young guys killed in Austrian Alps racing. Came off a clif
Discussion
TTmonkey said:
Super Slo Mo said:
SonicShadow said:
Why, was it broken?
One of the magazines, might have been CAR, made a big deal about it having lift off oversteer that was difficult to catch. Think the headline was something like "How Toyota Spoilt the New MR2".It was 25 years ago so I might have remembered it wrong.
Would let go with zero warning. Looked nice though.
Wet conditions will see it let go easier but it will let go in the dry.
Decent rubber is needed on the rear and needs tonbe changed once tread is half worn really.
And they dont drift well either (que loads of vids of MR2 doing fantastic backwards entry drifts lol)
Gixer said:
TTmonkey said:
So you are effectively saying you think they've gone past the point where they would normally have stopped, and turned around to go back down....?
I've been there and driven the road but last time was some time ago but I do remember driving it all the way, pass that junction where there's the small road to the summit (which I never bothered with), if you keep going until there is no more road you get to a busy little place with a multi-storey car park from which there is various long hikes and glacier views etc. I can't remember the name but looking at my photos, I wonder if its Gamsgrubenweg . We hiked for a few hours before driving back down Gixer, I know where you mean (edelweiss centre?), but I think this would be their natural stop and turn around point. They were on a rally remember, I wouldn't be surprised if they needed to get a photo from that visitor centre as part of their "competition". As I said before this is nothing but conjecture but it would explain how this corner could have caught them out as they were obviously traveling the route in that direction.
All I know for certain, is the memorial where you have the picture of your lovely 'vette is where they crashed but heading in the opposite direction to which your car is facing which led me to presume that this second ascent was the first time they came across the bend. The bend and memorial (the pointy topped stone building) however definitely isn't at the summit, it's simply the highest point of the proper pass and is on the south side of the the route. The much higher summit is as you say up a smaller road that is off the junction pictured on the previous page.
Does anyone know the itinerary of the rally? Presumably if I'm guessing correctly they were heading south/east after the grossglockner and on towards Slovenia/Vienna which would lead them past the summit down into the next valley via the corner they had the accident on?
Edited by LaurasOtherHalf on Tuesday 28th July 17:44
I do this kind of trip every year.
We will pass that exact spot later this year.
As well as a well prepared vehicle, you do need some experience.
The previous night, they probably put away the car with nice warm grippy tyres. That was their last experience of the grip available.
First thing next morning, its usually much colder and tyres have no grip.
You maybe wouldn't notice that until you hit the first fast bend with coldish tyres.
Here's some motorbike footage of that bend.
The incident place is at 22:23
The corner is blind so you have do slow down quite a lot without seeing the full extent of the bend.
https://youtu.be/8qBmVzuGyqs?t=22m15s
We will pass that exact spot later this year.
As well as a well prepared vehicle, you do need some experience.
The previous night, they probably put away the car with nice warm grippy tyres. That was their last experience of the grip available.
First thing next morning, its usually much colder and tyres have no grip.
You maybe wouldn't notice that until you hit the first fast bend with coldish tyres.
Here's some motorbike footage of that bend.
The incident place is at 22:23
The corner is blind so you have do slow down quite a lot without seeing the full extent of the bend.
https://youtu.be/8qBmVzuGyqs?t=22m15s
razor04 said:
I had 2 of these a rev2 N/A and rev3 turbo both let go on me a number of times and they are very difficult to recover the pendulm effect of the midmounted engine puts you into a lethal fishtail.
Wet conditions will see it let go easier but it will let go in the dry.
Decent rubber is needed on the rear and needs tonbe changed once tread is half worn really.
And they dont drift well either (que loads of vids of MR2 doing fantastic backwards entry drifts lol)
I wonder who's fault that was, the driver or the car? Wet conditions will see it let go easier but it will let go in the dry.
Decent rubber is needed on the rear and needs tonbe changed once tread is half worn really.
And they dont drift well either (que loads of vids of MR2 doing fantastic backwards entry drifts lol)
SonicShadow said:
razor04 said:
I had 2 of these a rev2 N/A and rev3 turbo both let go on me a number of times and they are very difficult to recover the pendulm effect of the midmounted engine puts you into a lethal fishtail.
Wet conditions will see it let go easier but it will let go in the dry.
Decent rubber is needed on the rear and needs tonbe changed once tread is half worn really.
And they dont drift well either (que loads of vids of MR2 doing fantastic backwards entry drifts lol)
I wonder who's fault that was, the driver or the car? Wet conditions will see it let go easier but it will let go in the dry.
Decent rubber is needed on the rear and needs tonbe changed once tread is half worn really.
And they dont drift well either (que loads of vids of MR2 doing fantastic backwards entry drifts lol)
2nd was when I first got my turbo and it had old tyres, came round a corner at low speed and the back stepped out which I held in a rather nice slide (didn't feel cool etc, was s
tting myself as it was a blind corner and if I'd tried to straighten it out right away I'd have gone into the tree at the entry to the corner)3rd was getting on the A50 at the stoke roundabout (the one where you have to go right to head towards utoxeter), in the wet got on the power slightly too early and it came on boost putting me sideways which i corrected.
4th was about 2 seconds later when I tried to put some throttle on again and the exact same thing happened, came on boost and went sideways which was quickly corrected and really scary.
None of those were down to the car, those were all down to me being an idiot and each of them was a wake up call.
In regards to the chaps that unfortunately met their demise my deepest sympathy goes to their families. I watched that video and they were driving fast but didn't seem idiotic to me at all. Having read the build thread etc it seems to me that it was literally a case of wrong place wrong time. I'm going on a trip to Germany in September and the thought of something like that happening to either myself or one of my friends absolutely terrifies me.
I suppose at least they went out doing something they loved and can't bare to think of what their thoughts were for the last few seconds before impact. All I hope is that it was painless.
RIP chaps.
SonicShadow said:
razor04 said:
I had 2 of these a rev2 N/A and rev3 turbo both let go on me a number of times and they are very difficult to recover the pendulm effect of the midmounted engine puts you into a lethal fishtail.
Wet conditions will see it let go easier but it will let go in the dry.
Decent rubber is needed on the rear and needs tonbe changed once tread is half worn really.
And they dont drift well either (que loads of vids of MR2 doing fantastic backwards entry drifts lol)
I wonder who's fault that was, the driver or the car? Wet conditions will see it let go easier but it will let go in the dry.
Decent rubber is needed on the rear and needs tonbe changed once tread is half worn really.
And they dont drift well either (que loads of vids of MR2 doing fantastic backwards entry drifts lol)
TTmonkey said:
However, my main point was the different handling characteristics that you get between FWD and RWD - the RWD allows you to a small amount of control of a car that's going to fast for the corner in a way that still allows you to get around the corner... where as the FWD car just continues in the straight line to the scene of the accident.
Unfortunately this^^ isn't really true either. If you are going too fast, you are going too fast. End of. Sure, the rwd car might understeer off (as that is its basic trailing throttle dynamic balance) and the fwd one might oversteer off, but you're still going off!(basically, you can't increase you maximum corner speed by sliding either end of the car, as tyre grip is a maximum at about 10 to 15% slip (for a typical road tyre))
LaurasOtherHalf said:
Does anyone know the itinerary of the rally? Presumably if I'm guessing correctly they were heading south/east after the grossglockner and on towards Slovenia/Vienna which would lead them past the summit down into the next valley via the corner they had the accident on?
Having checked, the itinerary route of the rally should have taken them back down the way they came unless I'm mistaken 
And yet they crash on that corner (beyond the summit) and the porsche driver tells the police they were supposed to meet up at the glacier which would take them in the opposite direction too. Anyone else think that is correct?
I've driven this road dozens if not hundreds of times.
I was born in a small village called Lofer which is about 20km away near Kaprun. I learned to drive on these roads in a BMW E30 320i. In winter that was on full studs.
I was taught to drive by 2 people; my father and the husband of a family friend. He was a native Tyrolean who spent half the year ski instructing and the rest as a mountaineering expedition leader.
Both of those people taught me some very specific things, namely that everything up at those heights is trying to kill you, including the roads.
I now race and rally classic cars so have a serious lust for flat out driving but this still stays with me.
We'll never fully know what happened to these poor lads but from their videos there is no argument that they simply weren't paying due respect to their environment. That can be excused in a way as they were somewhere they'd never experienced before, but they were clearly flirting with disaster and ultimately paid the price.
I feel for them. We were all young and silly once, many of us still are, but the most likely thing that happened here is that 2 lads drove round a corner way too fast and binned it. End of story.
As an aside: don't let it put you off going. It's staggeringly beautiful and the roads are superb. Even if they are trying to kill you.
I was born in a small village called Lofer which is about 20km away near Kaprun. I learned to drive on these roads in a BMW E30 320i. In winter that was on full studs.
I was taught to drive by 2 people; my father and the husband of a family friend. He was a native Tyrolean who spent half the year ski instructing and the rest as a mountaineering expedition leader.
Both of those people taught me some very specific things, namely that everything up at those heights is trying to kill you, including the roads.
I now race and rally classic cars so have a serious lust for flat out driving but this still stays with me.
We'll never fully know what happened to these poor lads but from their videos there is no argument that they simply weren't paying due respect to their environment. That can be excused in a way as they were somewhere they'd never experienced before, but they were clearly flirting with disaster and ultimately paid the price.
I feel for them. We were all young and silly once, many of us still are, but the most likely thing that happened here is that 2 lads drove round a corner way too fast and binned it. End of story.
As an aside: don't let it put you off going. It's staggeringly beautiful and the roads are superb. Even if they are trying to kill you.
Looking at the pic below they went off at the 3rd fence post (including the one directly next to concrete post thing). That's right at the exit of the corner
This video give a good view of / through the corner, note where the 3rd post is: https://youtu.be/8qBmVzuGyqs?t=22m21s
Now note where the BMW leaves the road in this clip : https://youtu.be/az_Vlgy5dbM?t=38s
The SEAT looks to of left the road slightly sooner than the BMW did (the BMW was pretty much out of the corner when he went off, the SEAT still on the exit of the corner) but that would make sense as the BMW was in the inside lane of the bend so had the extra lane to cross before going over the edge.
Well thats my theory anyway.
ETA : so my point is, I think they did exactly what the BMW did and just overcooked it and understeered off
This video give a good view of / through the corner, note where the 3rd post is: https://youtu.be/8qBmVzuGyqs?t=22m21s
Now note where the BMW leaves the road in this clip : https://youtu.be/az_Vlgy5dbM?t=38s
The SEAT looks to of left the road slightly sooner than the BMW did (the BMW was pretty much out of the corner when he went off, the SEAT still on the exit of the corner) but that would make sense as the BMW was in the inside lane of the bend so had the extra lane to cross before going over the edge.
Well thats my theory anyway.
ETA : so my point is, I think they did exactly what the BMW did and just overcooked it and understeered off
LaurasOtherHalf said:
Pretty much all of my friends and aquaintances who aren't into cars would describe two young men driving fast in a souped up car "racing" and will have done for years. And that's before you actually take into account that they were driving with another car at some point.
Why do forum threads always descend into some bunch of pricks segueing about the correct definition of a word or phrase? Truly bizarre behaviour.
You generally come across like a sensible chap so this is a surprising outburst.Why do forum threads always descend into some bunch of pricks segueing about the correct definition of a word or phrase? Truly bizarre behaviour.
Semantics matter. If they were "racing" then they were doing something irresponsible, unconscionable, possibly illegal, which mitigates the sadness of their sudden deaths and makes us moderate our sympathies.
If you want to classify all fast driving on the road as "racing" then you might as well say that all fast driving on the road is irresponsible and unconscionable.
Which is, of course, what many people do think. Most of us know that we are fighting a losing battle against the popular opinion that speed is socially unacceptable and morally repugnant. That does not mean the opinion is right, nor that ignorance and stupidity should go unchallenged.
delta0 said:
It's also hard to see the scale of that image but the hole in the fence is quite small. Looks more comparable to the width of the car rather than length. Suggests head on through the fence rather than sideways slide.
I've tried getting a jist of the scale from other photos online and it seems they've gone through at an angle, which would make sense. At that point in the corner they've already started turning in so wouldn't go through head on, they just appeared to of run out of road. Poor lads. Completely their own doing (probably) but still can't help feel sorry for them.
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