May
13
Tags
Practice Shouldn’t Be Interesting
The IndyCar folks are at Indianapolis Motor Speedway this month, getting ready for the 99th running of the Indianapolis 500 on May 24. Between now and May 24, the teams are practicing – working on setups, seeing how fast they can get their cars to go around the infamous oval, etc.
Today was…well, interesting. And practice shouldn’t really be interesting. Other than oh, Carlos Munoz topped 230 mph! Interesting! Not…oh, Helio Castroneves flipped his car end over end. Or…Pippa Mann sent her car spinning into the wall. Interesting!
I hate crashes. And I don’t usually post videos of them. UNLESS the drivers escaped without injury. Which, thankfully, was the case today, for both Castroneves and Mann. But, boy, those crashes looked nasty. More than anything, these videos show the wonders of physics. And of the incredible advances in safety technology. You would not survive these crashes in a regular car on a regular road going one third the speed.
Take a look.
Helio’s aerial dramatics.
Pippa’s triple Salchow, as it were.
Both were evaluated at the onsite medical center and released. Helio was even back out on track later. Pretty amazing.
And, finally, let’s hear it for Simona de Silvestro, who rescued herself from her burning racecar in practice yesterday, then also rescued an overly hyper safety crew member. 🙂
Let’s simmer down a little, IndyCar. We’ve gotta make it to May 24, then THROUGH it!
MOTORista 
I was impressed by Helio’s hands-off approach. Must be standard training to take their hands off the wheel when things get dicey and rely on the safety devices. Not much else to be done at that point.
Also impressed at the way parts disintegrate at those high speeds & impacts. Wondering if that allows forces to be absorbed outside the car body so the driver is more protected — or if the tolerances are just so tight that parts quickly exceed their limits.
Wow!