This is what happens when safety procedures are not followed!

We rear ended another competitor on stage who was blocking the road at a blind corner at the end of a downhill. No Lights, no triangles no flashers, NOTHING!
Scroll down this page and see the damage our car did to them. We put them off the road on a ditch. The impact put them at least 10 feet from original position.
I will type a report (an amendment to incident report) about it and notify all officials of our dissatisfaction some time this week.

Scroll down and look at the photo Pete Kuncis took at service:
http://www.onalimbracing.com/photos/2008_Black_River_Stages/16.htm

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rally gods would turn in their graves if they ever knew Lada's were now part of EU rallying!!!

faaak. that sucks.

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Jon Burke - KI6LSW
Blog: http://psgrallywrx.blogspot.com/

Yeah buddy, that fuckin sucks.

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Michael LeCompte

Interesting. I remember Bunnies humping at the end of a downhill one year at Oregon Trail. Maybe the red one is going to turn into a Passat, then give birth to Polos.

Seriously, what a bummer. If it was a fair world, those guys would give you the front clip off their car.

Now that I have a clearer mind I am pretty pissed and bummed about it. It will in no way end our rally future but if we have any concerns in the future we will address them right away, and expect things to be done.
My Codriver sister and I had discussed about us not wanting to start behind them on the saturday stages. We were going to talk to Anders about it after the stage we ended up hitting them. The stage before(5.5m), we caught them about 1 to 1.5m to go.We figured that we wont catch them on the 3.5mile last stage of the day, certainly did not expect them right after a blind downhill corner with no lights or triangles. Thankfully no one was hurt, eventhough the driver of the other vehicle was pretty shaken up. I still do hope they are OK but that was beyond a boneheaded move! They put everyone at risk, and that was not the first time they were seen by us without triangles or OK signs during the rally. I would love to see/hear of their incident report. We decided that we will amend ours with more details (3 lines reserved were certainly not enough!)

Oscar

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rally gods would turn in their graves if they ever knew Lada's were now part of EU rallying!!!

damn, that really does suck. I'd be furious. Thanks for the pics.

At least now you've got a reason to get rid of the headlights with rusty reflectors. I'l bet you'll be shocked at the difference.
Sorry, to hear that happened. I haven't been figure out the full answer yet- we they still in the car? If they were,could you have made up enough time on them that they had just had the incident and weren't out yet? Or lots of time to get out and get it done and they just didn't?

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Bruce Beauvais
Too many SAABs to count

They were still in the car and I would doubt i made enough time on them on a 3.5m stage. Even so why wouldnt they have their lights or flashers on? I seriously doubt they would have displayed triangles even if they had time.
Yeah the headlights suck! I had talked to someone on vortex about new ones but he never replied. Time to go pursuit him as he was somewhat local and asking only 30bucks

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rally gods would turn in their graves if they ever knew Lada's were now part of EU rallying!!!

I'm 99% sure I know who you hit, and after I saw some of their "actions" at RWV I'm not completely suprised. Someone "in charge" needs to talk to these guys and let them know that if they don't get their crap together that they won't be rallying for long.

I hit a car once that was stuck on a berm: they were inside the car hoping to get bumped off. Ended my rally. You can be sure I have personal feelings about this situation. Some preliminary inquiries have already been made, and more will come.



Anders

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Grassroots rally. It's what I think about.

Never fear; discussions of 'remedial' action, and how to approach this, are in progress as we speak.

I understand how pissed you are, Oscar. This was not a safe situation, and seems like they could have taken action. Once both sides of the story are known, then we can all figure out how to lower the probability of this happening again.

Just keep one things in mind: This kind of incident can happen at the front or in the middle of the field as well as in the back. An engine problem slowing a car, and then a spin in a blind corner, can create exactly the same situation, with no time for getting triangles out. In other words, it CAN happen to even the most conscientious team. I am inclined to agree with your assessment of the other team's performance, or lack thereof.

But we all ought to maintain the perspective that this is racing and all sorts of crazy things can happen, and any of us can cause them, even with the best intentions, procedures, and efforts. Heck, I can recall:
- An STPR where one car went off, many cars passed, and then a much later car rolled on top of the first car.
- 2 personal and seriuos incidents with cars not putting triangles out, where I crashed into the trees (and tore up the car far worse than yours) to avoid running over one person, and barely avoided the other car in similar situation years later. I got mad at the GUYS who did those stupid things, but not at the organizers or sanctioning body.

Let's work to make this situation better. Best regards, and I'll call about the RWV refund check,
Mark B.

Scott Leonard wrote off a car at Rally Colorado in 2007 due to a similar situation where a car was stuck on a tricky blind corner, standing with a tow rope instead of letting coming cars know they were there. Scott went off avoiding them, rolled the car multiple times, destroying the shell.

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Grant Hughes

Anders Green Wrote:
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> I hit a car once that was stuck on a berm: they
> were inside the car hoping to get bumped off.
> Ended my rally. You can be sure I have personal
> feelings about this situation. Some preliminary
> inquiries have already been made, and more will
> come.
>
>
>
> Anders
>
> Raleigh, NC
> Impreza H6 3.0

We also will be amending our incident report. Will give you a call soon!

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rally gods would turn in their graves if they ever knew Lada's were now part of EU rallying!!!

turoc Wrote:
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> We rear ended another competitor on stage who was
> blocking the road at a blind corner at the end of
> a downhill. No Lights, no triangles no flashers,
> NOTHING!



What... the parked car blocking the road wasn't mentioned in the notes?

Heavens! What to do?

Oh I see..... bitch and moan about it.

Sheesh.....

It's called rally. Anyone who thinks stages are closed, notes tell the whole story of what's ahead, and triangles will save your ass, might as well rally while drunk.

Yeah, you have a right to be pissed, it seems as though the other party could have been making an attempt to notify following cars of the blockage. Sounds like the stewards know what you think.

But realize that rally isn't Disneyland. A lot of stuff can happen out there. Force-Majeur happens. It could have been a moose or a civilian vehicle, too. And could have been a lot worse. Cars can be repaired. Yeah, it's expensive. Suck it up.

I'd like to have a cold beer for every road blockage I've come upon. I've stuffed it trying to miss rally cars, codrivers, marshals and other stuff. I've hit cars blocking stages and hit cars that already went off. Sorry! There is more than one reason why light-bars/pods are removeable.

I've also watched my wife almost be killed trying to set up triangles. I know, almost doesn't count.

Most rally people are super helpful and try hard to do the right thing. Some couldn't give one rat's asshole hair about anyone else, won't set up triangles, won't pick up their triangles, won't stop to assist other teams trapped in crashed cars, etc. Sometimes it's an honest mistake or redmist taking control. Sometimes it's that the people were brought up in a culture where a human life is worth lesss than a dollar. Some even use blocking the road as a strategy to try and get a bad stage time scrubbed, after they hit trouble. You will figure out who to trust.

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Ted Mendham
www.rensport.net