Get Well soon Greg and Steph!

[gmonkey]

On behalf of everyone here at OA wishing you 2 a quick recovery after your first serious rally incident (and lets hope last).

Quote taken from facebook of the incident:

For those that don't know what happened, it was the very first gravel stage at IROQ, and it was the last corner of the stage, which was a fast left han...der on a cattle grid crest. I said to Steph before the stage started that it felt like we had a seized rear shock (which explains why one side had excessive neg camber when I did the allignment the day before), and the first big jump of the event that we landed sideways over, the car settle in the front fine, and I thought we'd gotten away with it, but as the back has come down, it's bounced straight back up, and pointed us at the trees... We skidded along the side of the road for a while, before we finally fell off the road, and kit a tree at about 120-130km/hr head on...

Car came to a rest facing backwards in the position that all the pictures have been taken at... Was easily the 'low point' in my career thus far, so I have that box ticked and out of the way!!

Still decideing what to do... Dunno whether to rebuild the car (anyone know a cheap GDB shell??), or hold off until the 2WD and SUV regs are finalised for the ARC... Time will tell!

Thanks again everyone for your suppost and well wishes, much appreciated!!!!

#43 Latho

And a pic :( poor imprezza

http://i573.photobucket.com/albums/ss172/gmonkey14/228147_10150183398372098_526632097_7158691_3120818 _n.jpg?t=1305470637


Once again hoping for a speedy recovery! Yes car maybe wrecked but you walked away with your lives to race another day and thats what matters!

[ChrisMaz]

WOW. Hope both escaped with only minor injuries :|

Hope to see you back out there soon.

[Greg K]

Hope you have a speedy recovery Greg & Steph!

[Shadow110]

Get well guys and hopefully make a speedy recovery!!!

[Nurb608]

Ouch!

Hope you guys have a speedy recovery.

[sooty]

All the best guys! Looks like a nasty accident!

[poita]

Oh shit!

All the best with the recovery for both of you.

[btm]

jesus! speedy recovery guys!

[Vectracious]

Wow - looks very nasty... :( - all the best with your recovery guys

[guy 27]

+1 to all the above

ouch.

[gman]

Greg I hope you and Steph are OK and recovering well.

Definitely looks like a serious hit, the main thing is that you guys actually walked away from it. Shows good car prep and a strong cage.

Get better soon mate.

Glenn

[metry]

hope you guys have a speedy recovery.

[hazrd]

Holy cow Greg, u two were very lucky there.

As Glen said, good prep + strong cage = safe driver/navigator.

Wishing you both the best in a speedy recovery and back on the road dirt ready for another battle!!

[HoldenAstra]

Good luck!

[Hoss]

All the best for a quick recovery for the both of you.

[JohnBu]

wow... it appears most of the damage was done between the driver and co-driver..

could have been much worst..

hope you guys have a speedy recovery.

[dglewis80]

Unreal that they walked away. All the best for a speedy recovery.

[benzino]

WOW!
good luck guys
(I was wondering why you never wrote back, Greg... you had a pretty good reason :p)

[gslrallysport]

Hey guys,

Thanks for the kinds words! We're ok, I've got a chipped ankle, and was taken straight to Nambour hospital. Steph went one better and got a a double cracked pelvis and was choppered straight to Brisbane as the pain kinda suggested more than that. I was released on Sat arvo, and Steph yesterday. Car's a write off, but the photo's really do make it look worse that it was... yes it was a BIG hit, but the cars are designed for it, all 4 doors still open, and from the base of the windscreen back the car looks fine (except for the wing which departed in the impact!).

Got a couple of belt bruises, but glad I had 3" belts and not 2" or they'd be alot worse!!

I'm not in the least bit surprised we walked away with minor injuries, it's testament to the cars and the sport in general. It might've been the morphine and the pain giving me a short temper, but I was getting quite annoyed with doctors saying to me in an almost condescending tone "so have you learnt your lesson, and stay away from rally driving now?". To which I replied, "On a scale of 1 to 10 how bad are my injuries from a very high speed car accident that you've seen?" "One or two..." "Good, so driving down the highway on holiday is more dangerous than rally driving, now give me some more morphine and don't lecture me!"

I'll be back!

Cheers,
Latho

[hazrd]

LOL
the docs are there to cure you, not lecture you :rolleyes:

anyways, glad to know u are back up and kicking around, and looking forward to following your next project (all your FB shenanegins :p )

[gmonkey]

Makes ya wonder why full cages are illegal on public roads really doesnt it. .. except if u have to get outta the car quickly or don't have them padded they are a lifesaver

Sent from my X10i using Tapatalk

[Bloodnok]

Makes ya wonder why full cages are illegal on public roads really doesnt it.

IIRC the exact details of what's legal and what isn't varies from state to state - but could you imagine the results of a collision between a car with a full race cage including connection to front and rear strut tops and a standard small car?

I wouldn't want to be in the small car in that case.

(You could say the same thing about bullbars and roo bars too though, and yet they are legal...)

[gslrallysport]

A lot of it is to do with occupant safety, doesn't really have much to do with hitting other cars. If that was the case then Lada's should never have been sold! :p (I can joke about them too as I used to rally one! ;)) For a full cage to be effective you need to be wearing helmets and seats/harnesses that don't allow you to move at all. Hitting your head against a roll cage bar at any sort of decent speed (even 80km/hr) will kill you instantly... And roll cage padding has no effect. The soft stuff does nothing in an impact, and the hard stuff (the FIA approved stuff) is so hard that without a helmet it's as bad as hitting the roll cage bar.

[gmonkey]

Roo bars are said to become illegal on all vehicles In metro areas soon supposably (which I doubt, as I don't see a freight trucker digging out the socket set)

I used to have softish foam on my cage haha scrutineers never said anything to me :p

Sent from my X10i using Tapatalk

[Shay]

Unfortunate mate.

Was lucky when i was working pit for a WARC car when the ARC was here that there was no big hits like this.
But for you guys to walk away from that is a real testament to how these cars are built, and the reasons behind it.

get well soon, i say get involved in the ARC mate! watching the 400hp silvia smashing through the gravel was awe inspiring.
not to mention the BDA Escort in the Classics, or even eli evans Civic.......

has there any negatives from the locals/event organisers?

cos i know for one of the series i race in we were told if anyone crashed it would be highly likely that we wouldnt be allowed to race there ever again (in openwheelers at least)

[gmonkey]

400hp silvia on gravel!! wtf are they crazy!? 400hp is crazy enough but to use a RWD on gravel is just stupid IMO :p

[Shay]

400hp silvia on gravel!! wtf are they crazy!? 400hp is crazy enough but to use a RWD on gravel is just stupid IMO :p

sorry to thread jack greg...

here it is brent, i got heaps of photos of it too while i was down there...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1NJhM7HjZw

[gslrallysport]

has there any negatives from the locals/event organisers?

cos i know for one of the series i race in we were told if anyone crashed it would be highly likely that we wouldnt be allowed to race there ever again (in openwheelers at least)
That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard... na, there's definitely no repercussions like that to be of!

[nuggz]

Not to offend

But did the windscreen sticker along the top say Rallyschool?

And good news to see you walk away from that

[gslrallysport]

Yep.

It's the 'RallySchool.com.au Australian Junior Challenge' we were competing in.

[Shay]

sorry about getting you in the shit on fb greg :p
deleted my post...

[gslrallysport]

All good mate, my bad for saying these before discussing them with the affected parties... :(

[ROCCO]

sweet mother of god....hope everyone is ok....get well soon