F1 Perished Heroes.

"The most upsetting part of that video is if you know that Roger Williamson was pleading with Dave Purley to help him get out of the car as the marshalls watched the fire build, can’t really understand how purley must have felt as his friend and team mate died in front of him whilst the marshals just looked on……..Dave Purley was later awarded the George Cross for bravery……..a man who was very very deserving of that medal.

At least most of us have decent fire extinguishers at the track these days"

I think you are talking about the shot where the car is on its side and the one driver is trying in vain to tip it back over. That was heart wrentching. I too was wondering why no one seemed to be trying to help him rescue the other driver. Very sad.

 

I was wondering where the marshalls were too. Nobody was anywhere near him

 

This happend in Zandvoort in the early seventies. A few years ago Dutch television showed a half hour documentary to commemorate the 30th anniversary of this tragedy. The reason for marshals doing nothing is quite shocking:
- they had no protective clothing whatsoever
- on the spot there was exactly 1 fire extinguisher
- the fire truck was located 250 m away but had to drive the whole circuit since the organisers did not want to stop the race and otherwise the fire truck had to drive in the wrong direction with oncoming F1 cars....

 

There is more than 1 meaning to the word hero.

F1 Drivers would be noted for special achievement in Driving cars beyond the limits.

F1 drivers are respected or admired for driving beyond the limits.

They are heroes

 

My some of those fires are absolutely brutal Seeing guys in there, trying to get out and watching the car erupt into flames.

But it does bring up a pretty valid point, how many f-car drivers carry a fire extinguisher in their car? The fuel tanks are known to rupture on these cars and more than a few have burnt to the ground.

Believe me when you see a 360 after a fire it's scary, intake manifold melted, nothing to tell you what it is other than the wheels and a couple castings. Very scary.

 

Lorenzo Bandini lay dying in the hospital after his Monaco crash and his wife was in the next room having a miscarriage. Talk about tragedy...

 

That is horrible!

 

Wow. That is really terrible

 

Mike360, thanks for the post. As a big F1 fan, it was good to see this.

I can provide a recording of the 1994 San Marino GP. PM me if you need a copy. It is the F1 Decade version that aired on Speed Channel in 2004. It is also very sobering.

Very tough what happened to Bandini. That is tragic.

 

sad and sobering.....

 

This also hits close to home for me as far as fire saftey. I am greatly involved with an off road racing team (desert/baja type stuff). A good friend of mine Steve Kurtyka tapes these races and sells a compilation DVD every year. Last year he was in a helicopter filming the race. They delayed taking off due to weather so when the chopper finally got to the landing site I took Steve to the chopper. Later one of the race trucks broke down so we loaded up and took parts/tools out to get the truck going again. As we are enroute steves chopper flys over and we all wave back and forth. we got to the site and they circled in the chopper a bit then took off. The truck got going again so we headed back to the main pits. Just before we got back one of the girls on the team called us crying that steves helicopter had crashed. We feared the worst, it was horrible. He had 3rd degree burns over 80% of his body. The doctors claim he shoulnd have survived. It is likely that he is here today thanks to the quick work of course workers, the local sheriff getting help, quick response from the medivac....but most importantly the other racers in the race that stopped/withdrew to stop and help and lend a hand (another touching part of that perished heros video).

Fire is nothing to play around with. When I start racing im buying the most expensive safest suit I can buy, somthing like a sparco 9 layer. Im going to get an expensive helmet, my head is worth more than $500. I will gladly wear a hans/dcell, my neck and spine are worth more than the $3500 to set up a hans device.

For anyone that races I highly reccomend a halon or any other kind of in car fire supression system and keep it up to date.

S T R E N G T H
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Sorry to hear about your friend, but at least he's alive.

How exactly did they treat 3rd degree burns to 80% of the body? In most cases people would go into toxic shock and die a few days later.

Good attitude when it comes to safety. Check out the PDF lists of Formula 1 certified helmets and race apparel available at the FIA website, if you're really keen on learning about the 'best'.

http://www.fia.com/sport/Regulations/driverequipregs.html

The exact helmets used in F1 are carbon-fibre (post French GP 2004) and have to comply with the FIA 8860-2004 standard. All these helmets are available in non carbon-fibre varients, which the F1 drivers had been wearing up until mid 2004. Of course some completely new designs have been introduced since then and worn in F1 (notably from Bell and Schuberth).

When the FIA originally proposed the new standard in 2002/2003, Arai (the largest supplier of helmets in F1) stated that carbon-fibre would not provide substantial improvements in safety over their current design (Super Complex Laminate Construction), and the new standard would not exist had Arai not finally agreed to it. Anyway, the end result is that Formula 1 now leads world motorsport with another innovation.

 

I was told that is part of the reason he was put into a drug induced coma and also because his body was using the medicines to stay alert and awake instead of fighting off the infections.