If there’s one thing about rally crashes over the years, it’s that they have gotten bigger and bigger, yet thankfully, the cars have become safer and safer.
Back when my dad started rallying, roll cages were pretty much unheard of, and crash helmets …. well, let’s just say that terry-towelling hats were much more comfortable!
When I started driving in the late 1980s, a bolt-in aluminium roll cage and a second-hand motorbike helmet were deemed good enough.
Thankfully, all that has changed and now, proper steel roll cages, lightweight helmets and even HANS devices have become the norm right across the sport.
Yet in the instance of a “big one”, luck will still play a huge part in the end result. Sure, the car might be destroyed, but whether you and your co-driver are able to walk away uninjured is still sometimes in the laps of the gods.
Take Craig Breen’s crash in an Italian rally last weekend as a prime example. The Irishman was driving a Hyundai i20 R5, built by the factory team to the safest, and most stringent, regulations we’ve ever seen.
Breen has done everything but win a round of the WRC in his career to date. He’s a seriously fast punter and right up there with the best in the world.
But when things are taken out of your hands, you’re literally a passenger on a runaway train, hoping beyond hope that things turn out okay – that is, if you have time to think at all.
Breen had won a couple of stages in the Italian tarmac event, but when a front right tyre blew out on a fast, twisty piece of road, there was nothing he could do but sit and wait for it all to end.
Footage of the accident – while not necessarily horrific – shows just how fast he was going, how fast things went wrong, and how lucky he and co-driver Paul Nagel actually were.
“We picked up a puncture on the front-right on a fast right corner, followed immediately by a left that tightened, and the moment I turned for the left the tyre just kicked off the bead and we were passengers from that point,” Breen explained.
“We’re okay, albeit a bit shaken up. We’ve been to the hospital and had our check-ups, but all is on order. Obviously, a disappointing way to end the rally.”
You can say that again!
Craig Breen was fortunate that the trees he hit didn’t enter the vehicle, and that they were both able to climb from the car unscathed, but it’s also a chilling reminder for all competitors that things can – and do – go wrong in the blink of an eye.
Most of us have been guilty at some time of skimping on a safety item in order to ensure we were able to afford that much needed (or wanted) performance upgrade, or to buy that new set of tyres.
However, it’s incidents like this that bring home once again that regardless of whether your car is an outright winner or a tail-end Charlie, scrimping on safety should never be an option.
We never like seeing crashes like that which Craig Breen endured last weekend, but sometimes it’s the reality check we all need to re-enforce the dangers of the sport we love.
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