fleming23

This is in-car from the GT-R. I still argue the GT-R was focused on Doug's (SRT4) bumper and not looking down the track, like you are trained, or he would have seen all the debris and car sitting against the wall smoking. The GT-R was obviously faster than the back 1/2 of the field, as he gridded late. He should have left a large gap and got his time in, this was time attack, not wheel-to-wheel.

There is also a claim from one of his friends that he has zero recollection of driving the car back to his paddock spot, despite having no front wheel, suspension, engine oil in the car, claiming he was in shock. I'm even more concerned an accident of that caliber put a driver in so much shock he drove a destroyed car through a paddock FULL of spectators.

Olitho

That is proof GT-Rs don't need drivers. They drive themselves.....

edge04

looks like he should have just drove through the grass. hard to tell but looks like you could see smoke around the 13 sec mark and he hits around the 16, plenty of time. Also hard to tell, but doesn't look like he ever hit the brakes until after hitting the other car. Glad everyone is ok.

TrackAire

Although it is easy to be an armchair quarterback after the fact, here is my take. It looks like the GT-R driver was going to put the left side tires onto the grass regardless if there was an incident up ahead or not. I think once he realized he over cooked the corner and was pushing wide to the left, that's where his total focus was.....just to keep his car on the track. By the time he saw brake lights it was too late to stop on asphalt let alone with two tires in the grass. I'm guessing he never saw the Vette situation until it was all over and too late. From the time the Vette's dust cloud came clearly into view and he hit the SRT-4 was only about 2 seconds of time, if that. It's always good to review situations like this and learn from them.
If you track enough, you're going to eventually have an on track issue.

I hope everybody walked away ok. All three cars took serious hits.

synner

GTR was fully on the track to me, he just wasn't looking downrange to see and react quickly enough. I assume he was 100% focused on maintaining the line vs full situational awareness. Saw smoke a second before he braked. Tough situation all around.

I really expected the issue to be from the hill. I'm baffled so many people crash at the turn in question. Though I've always wondered what goes through the minds of track designers when they don't provide runoff areas for high speed turns.

synner

Short term memory loss is more likely from a concussion of the hit with harnesses and g-load to the brain. Had it happen to me from a hockey game. Slammed head first into the ice, regained awareness 4 hours later asking how much longer to get to the game we had already played a couple hours ago. Freaked me out big time.

Nowanker

Finally able to watch that clip, and agree that his focus might have been elsewhere, and not looking ahead. Also agree that it's easy to pass judgement after the fact.
But if that 'Vette hadn't crashed, and if he managed to keep it on the track, he might have have wound up in the back of the SRT anyway...

KnightDriveTV

Wow, that GTR in-car is VERY telling...NEON had brake lights for quite a period and GTR driver didn't even react...I question if his eyes weren't in the car looking at the speedo/etc. His reaction to the entire situation was very delayed.

Nowanker

Lots of time elapsed from when the incident became visible until a reaction from the Nissan driver.
Wasn't looking ahead...
Awesome hand-over-hand action afterwards, though!

Nowanker

Alas, the autonomous car is here, and coming to a racetrack near you soon!

ukrbmw