Image Unavailable, Please Login Remembering Helmuth Koinigg on his birthday, born 3 November 1948. Koinigg was an Austrian racing driver whose brief but promising Formula One career was tragically cut short during the 1974 United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen in only his second F1 race start. Suspension failure caused a heavy impact with the armco which resulted in his death.
I was at The Glen for that race but was unaware of his death until the next day. Barrier systems were in their infancy in those years.
Yes I believe that it was actually the barrier itself that caused his death and had it not been there, he could have quite likely survived.
That's what was reported at the time. Koinigg's car would have "submarined" under the guardrail that decapited him.
I seem to recall that a Fchat member who attended the race was very close to the accident scene. Horrifying.
That may have been me. We went every year, and we were standing right across from where he crashed. I was very young, so it was not until years later that I put two and two together. I remember my mom - who was a nurse - saying oh and kind of a hissing inhale... when they brought the body out of the car. we then went back to our car... I remember talking to my Dad about that and he said that the ambulance did not put on its lights and that is how they knew he was dead. I remember talking to a marshal at the Detroit GP who was there and actually went to retrieve his helmet, but that it had his head in there... he said it took him years to forget about that. we were there the year Cevert died as well, but at the other end of the track. I think they canceled the rest of the practice that day so we left very early.
