"I was there when..."

Racing events, drivers, cars or anything else from the past.
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Everso Biggyballies
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#16

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

Bottom post of the previous page:

I was there at Paddock Bend (Brands Hatch) in 1976 for the British GP..... when the incident with James Hunt crashing out, the race being stopped and restarting happened, as featured in the Rush movie.

I am sure I have written in greater detail of the weekend elsewhere in the forum, but I am sure I will have a copy somewhere in the files for my still a 'gunner happen' project 'book of my motor sport memories' :roll: :oops:

It (the book) will happen one day, but I will look for the draft copy relating to the Brands weekend weekend, and post it here.

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Puhis
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#17

Post by Puhis »

When Kimi rolled into the rather rocky and deep ditch during 2009 Neste Rally of Finland (images courtesy of my relative's not very good-quality phone.)

Few others had interesting moments in that particular bend as well. It had a weird camber, was mostly blind and very tricky, plus there was absolutely no room to run wide. A good spectator spot, though.
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#18

Post by PLAYLIFE »

1977-1982
Gli Anni Delle Febbre
Gilles Villeneuve #27
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#19

Post by Cheeveer »



Start pile-up at 7:30. Lots of confusion after that one. Why was it red-flagged, really?

Also, this:

***Some say you should live each day like it was your last... but who wants to live each day in wild panic and extreme death anxiety?

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#20

Post by kals »

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#21

Post by felan01 »

I was there when...
https://youtu.be/rXGKys62TXw
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#22

Post by PTRACER »

Oh my :down: How much did you see?

PLAYLIFE - You were really at Hockenheim in '82? :wow:
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#23

Post by Motorsportrace »

This happened in front of me (well, there was another straight between me and the crash), while I was filming.
A bit scary:
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#24

Post by PLAYLIFE »

PTRACER wrote:Oh my :down: How much did you see?

PLAYLIFE - You were really at Hockenheim in '82? :wow:
Certainly was, Hockenheim 1982 was my first ever Grand Prix attendance live. My dad used to be involved in F1 hence I was fortunate enough to be granted privileged access into the paddock and go to various races despite living in Australia.

Piquet-Salazar, heard the accident happen and saw derbis and commotion but didn't get a good view of what actually happened until we saw it on TV later that night or the next day. Didn't see the fight unfortunately!

Adelaide 1986 - we were positioned in the grandstand near the braking zone on Dequetteville Terrace (Brabham Straight). Saw Mansell come slithering into the braking zone and finally to a halt but didn't see the explosion of sparks because it was quite a fair way up the straight.

Adelaide 1991 - well no one saw anything that day! The irony is the sun came out later that afternoon and it turned into a nice day, shame they couldn't have delayed it for a few hours.

Sepang 2008 - I was in the final corner grandstand which gives you an excellent view of 2/3rd of the circuit including prime view of turns 7/8 where Massa hit the kerb and spun - bad mistake, grrr!

Monza 2011 - I was in the grandstand where that camera view was taken. It was humorous when Barrichello tried to get going after the shambles but beached himself on the kerb until the marshals got him going a second time.
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Gli Anni Delle Febbre
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#25

Post by felan01 »

PTRACER wrote:Oh my :down: How much did you see?
I was seated in the Oldfield stands, which were the closest ones to the crash, but we were still some distance away, maybe 600 or 700 feet. I was focused on the race to the finish line for the win so I followed the leaders and not the crash behind them. When I looked back, I saw Kenny Schrader run over to the window of the 3 and after taking a look inside he got very upset, jumping up and waving his arms to call the safety workers.
I was at the race with my cousin and his father-in-law, who was a big Dale fan. I shared my radio with him so I kept it tuned to the 3 team most of the time. During the red flag at around lap 175, Dale said something on the radio about how "they (Nascar) didn't know how dangerous what they were doing was". It was a relatively new thing that Nascar was red flagging races to avoid finishes under caution.
After the crash we heard the team call Dale on the radio for a minute or two. And then we heard somebody ask that Richard Childress' family be brought back to the team trailer. That was the last conversation on the team radio.
They got Dale out of the car within 5-10 minutes, and I saw them doing CPR on him. After the ambulance left, they laid a blue tarp over the car which we knew was not a good sign. Someplace I have a picture of it. I also took a picture of the immediate aftermath of the crash. If I find them I'll scan them and post them here.
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#26

Post by felan01 »

https://youtu.be/iZy-tPkZ3W4

I was sitting in the Northwest Vista stands and what remained of Conway's car landed in front of us. There was only one tire attached to the tub and miraculously Conway was ok, despite injuries. I got a few pictures of the rescue team working on him as they got him out of the car and the tub as it was towed away.

Do not post these pictures anyplace else.

This is the remains of the tub as it came to a rest:
Image

And here they have Conway out of the car on a stretcher
Image
Last edited by felan01 8 years ago, edited 2 times in total.
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#27

Post by Ian-S »

Everso Biggyballies wrote:I was there at Paddock Bend (Brands Hatch) in 1976 for the British GP..... when the incident with James Hunt crashing out, the race being stopped and restarting happened, as featured in the Rush movie.

I am sure I have written in greater detail of the weekend elsewhere in the forum, but I am sure I will have a copy somewhere in the files for my still a 'gunner happen' project 'book of my motor sport memories' :roll: :oops:

It (the book) will happen one day, but I will look for the draft copy relating to the Brands weekend weekend, and post it here.
Top or bottom? I was there at the bottom of the dip, although I was only 4 at the time :lol:

Been at plenty of others, Herbert's crash at Brands, basically all the GP's at Brands after '76 so saw most of those shunts if they happened at Paddock, infact there's too much to mention.

My dad's seen a lot too, including Joe Siffert's crash at Brands, and he was returning home from work a few minutes after Mike Hawthorn's crash on the A3 but didn't realise the significance until it was announced.
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Everso Biggyballies
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#28

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

Ian-S wrote:
Everso Biggyballies wrote:I was there at Paddock Bend (Brands Hatch) in 1976 for the British GP..... when the incident with James Hunt crashing out, the race being stopped and restarting happened, as featured in the Rush movie.

I am sure I have written in greater detail of the weekend elsewhere in the forum, but I am sure I will have a copy somewhere in the files for my still a 'gunner happen' project 'book of my motor sport memories' :roll: :oops:

It (the book) will happen one day, but I will look for the draft copy relating to the Brands weekend weekend, and post it here.
Top or bottom? I was there at the bottom of the dip, although I was only 4 at the time :lol:
I found my ramblings of the event that I mentioned.... We also were nearer the nottom of Paddock than the top. IIRC there was a 'proper crandstant towards the top.....

I was with a group of other mates and we had for a couple of years all turned up in an old transit van which we parked in the field behind Paddock Hill Bend at Brands Hatch for the british GP....we used to set up and build our own grandstand from scaffolding and lie planks along the top and sit up in the top. We used to use the same set up for Silverstone but on the entry to Abbey when it was a real corner.....right where Barry Sheene had his 'biggie'.

We decided to pitch far enough round to be able to see up to Druids as well so we were on a bit of a slope. We used to go the Friday night before to set up and ensure we got a good spot.

Rif raf with their 44 gallon drums and planks looked on in awe as we assembled this 'thing' which was more built more on the 'She'll be right' principle of max people, beer space, and 'effect', than to a plan........ and would be built to how 5 pissed idiot teenagers, who had been released from home for the weekend, would build it.

Each of us remembered how we did it the year before differently. It got modified between support races on Saturday.........By Saturday night we had a perfect errection!

We were by racetime in a sea of people, sat up in our 'corporate suite'. We had a few extra guests who we had invited....... basically it was the best 'pulling' device a guy could have.(for pulling babes not the other type of pulling teenage boys do....) Anyway as the cars were lined up on the straight ....all the sirens were going - 10 mins, 5 mins before the warm up, a few guys just started climbing on for a better view. We all of course had the top row of seats( the plank ) with enough beer for us not to need to come down for more. We hadnt actually thought about the increasing need for somewhere to put the used stuff without getting down. ......

We had a really excellent view and could see the cars coming over the crest into Paddock Hill Bend and all the way up to Druids and were back about 20metres from the fence.

People were asking to come up on our scaffolding, and the answer to those that asked that was basically dependant on Bust size! Others just climbed on. It was seriously overloaded but common sense was not part of our judgement skills in those days.

I was a fanatic Lauda supporter from when I saw him race a Malboro BRM V12, also at Brands a couple of years before.. He was on pole, albeit in a Ferrari by then. All my mates were much more patriotic and followed James Hunt, alongside on the front row..... They were also 1st and 2nd in the WDC although Niki was doing it pretty easy.

As Niki led the field away on the warm up and into Paddock I was the idiot standing up on my 'podium' going WOOHOOO so loud when Niki went past I swear he looked at me as he came down the hill before weaving off up the hill. I sat down again when about 1000 people turned and looked at me. And I thought they were all so f****n jealous !

You could hear the cars going out round the back of Hawthorns towards Dingle Dell. In fact Hawthorn is a short sprint from Druids when you are keen. (No monster plasma screens in those days) .

Anyway the cars were all lining up on the grid, just out of sight, in the dip of pit straight. This seemed to start a flurry of people climbing up and hanging off 'our' stand. It had suddenly become a tower of people! What the hell....we were all furiously sucking on our beers and Marlboro or John Player Special promotional sample ciggy packs that the promo girls handed out. We had swapped a couple of light ales for a bundle of extra ciggies from one of the girls. It was cool to smoke in those days. I was trying to adjust the lens and settings on my camera and was oblivious to many of the extras.

The revs screamed and the race started ..........woohoo two Ferraris came into sight. Regga had started brilliantly from the second row to be on the outside of Niki going round the start of Paddock. Hunt tucked in behind. Almost straightaway though Niki and Clay were wheel to wheel. Niki won the 'touch up' and carried on up the hill, but the Camber of Paddock was against Regga etc and he lost it in a half spin. James was right behind, and just clipped Clay as he passed. James car flipped right up onto 2 wheels. He was so close to flipping over.

At that moment I was half standing on the platform, on the point of getting the best picture of my life..........

All of a sudden the people hanging off our stand plus everyone else all lurched and leant forward to see the action that was developing, and almost in slow motion this tower of people overbalanced as one of scaffolding clamps slipped.

We all just crashed and fell, bottles exploding, cans flying everywhere, not to mention people shouting and swearing, bodies tangled like a giant game of Twister. I cant really remember more of the incident with James. The race was red flagged.... While they were rebuilding race cars we were all laughing, arguing, apologising, and drinking. How no one got hurt I dont know. Well I know why I didnt. I landed on someone. Probably someone with big boobs

We started straight away to rebuild it much to a few peoples dismay. We decided to make it smaller, otherwise it wasnt going to happen. We could hardly stand let alone build. Some guy who we had squashed before seemed to want to help so we handed responsibility to him. He seemed to know about these things so we let him be project leader.

Within 5 minutes we had the best half as high and still high enough looking stand you could ask for. We gave the guy beer and a seat of honour! If he was game to sit in/on it so were we!

We were sort of busy rebuilding and generally talking more of our exploits as the race was on pause. The rest of the race all I remember is Regga and Laffite (the other two apart from Hunt that used spare cars at the restart) retired. At that point i think the word was James was trying to use a spare car rather than the original, repaired. Once the race restarted I do remember Niki was doing most of the race easy, until he slowed with I think a gear change/ linkage problem and Hunt passed and went on to win. And then he didnt!

I believe actually that this was the catalyst to the rule which calls for a red flagged race to be called the lap prior......... that was ultimately a Bernie Loophole to allow cars damaged in a start incident that sparked a red flag, to be able to start...ie dont diminish the spectacle unless its a last resort!...... if James had not taken part in the restart of the British Grand Prix.......... well it would take a braver man than me (gung-a-din) to go and tell the crowd that!

Well I guess that is my account of the 1976 British Grand Prix .

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#29

Post by Ian-S »

LOL cool, I remember sometime in the 80's clambering up the advertising hoarding at the bottom of Paddock and sitting on the top of it at one GP, got a right mouthful from so called Security but since nobody dare climb up to drag me down they just left me there, by the time the race had finished the top was lined with people.

Also used to take a mini screwdriver with me and poke holes in the bridge 'skin' to get a good view of the cars coming up to Druids :lol:
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#30

Post by neil28 »

I was there when:-

Ronnie Peterson opposite locked his way around Woodcote in his Lotus 72 (although I don't remember it!)
Gilles Villeneuve completed his first competitive lap in f1 at Silverstone 77
The first competitive lap of the Lotus 79 at the International Trophy in 1978 happened in practice
Michael Schumacher's first gp weekend at Spa in 1991
To see him win his first gp at Spa a year later

Good memories
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#31

Post by neil28 »

At the 76 British GP I was between Druids and Graham Hill bend. The atmosphere was incredible although you could not really see what was happening on the start line and in the pits so felt a bit removed from the hysteria. Hunt pulled off just round from us on the first lap at the back of the pits.

It is interesting to read the other accounts of this memorable day. Thanks to those who submitted their stories.
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