Driving rally car on the street...

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I do have a friend whose rally career was cut short that way. He had survived many rally accidents without a scratch - including a huge barrel roll at 120 mph during the Finnish WRC rally when a front suspension A-arm broke when he landed after one of those big jumps - but then he was out practicing on a small gravel road with the Lancia Integrale he got after the Finland incident and when he was done he loosened the seat belts a tad, took his helmet off and was just coasting towards home when he learnt that those Integrales do tend to go just straight ahead unless you are at full throttle. Went off at very low speed but hit his head into the cage, fractured his skull and lost his left eye. He survived, but no more rallying. It only takes a split second...

I know we've all done it and heard about the hazards. Same thing applies to transits really.

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Grant Hughes

Yikes! I'm usually in a hurry to get my helmit off on transits. Thanks for sharing this.

Risked life and limb and drove mine to work today. I am such a rebel.....

I'm gonna get the Chump legal so I can tear around town in a BMW painted to look kinda like a goose.
I've "heard" people say, blah blah, cage head, blah blah. This was the first second hand testimonial I've ever actually heard about someone wrecking a caged car unhelmeted.
Funny thing is the Protec skateboard helmets I've seen being used at rallyschools.

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Grant Hughes

loose belts, no helmet, and still going fast enough to understeer off the road?

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-KTurner
Stomp down on the exhilarator and hold on to the wheel.

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KTurner
loose belts, no helmet, and still going fast enough to understeer off the road?

Ordinary house-wife speed with kids in back in countryside of Finland would beat all but maybe top 6-8 guys..
Average Frenchie driving a 1.6 something drives with the fooot DOWN.
Last time I rented a car in England it was a Vauxhaul Nova with a 1.3 and I cruised everywhere with the foot nearly planted but a little left over for passing...85 mph everywhere, more for passing.

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

i remember bouncing my head of the cage that had not been padded yet pulling my celica over the curb in to the driveway

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I would rather drive a slow car fast as a fast car slow!
first rule of cars: get what makes you happy, your the one paying for it!

Hell, I've bounced my head off A-pillars in an UNCAGED car. Like "WONK-bounce-WONK-bounce-Wonk...." Thankfully, I had a helmet on....

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Parfois, on fait pas semblant!

I am:
I know:
I am from:

Nobody.
Nothing.
Nowhere.

I've been told that I once bounced my helmet-less head off a part of a cage, but I don't remember it happening. I also don't remember moving the car from the pits to the grid. Nor do I remember being asked to move the car. Nor do I remember what I had for lunch earlier that day.

YIKES!!!!

i have been rear ended in an IT car with the stock seats.
my head and neck met the cage behind the seat, but i do recall the events of the day

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I would rather drive a slow car fast as a fast car slow!
first rule of cars: get what makes you happy, your the one paying for it!

Which is why it scares me to have people put cages in their street cars. Maybe they do it for rally crosses, sometimes to be cool, but it for sure needs some soft padding, tho' that won't totally fix losing the head space and having any hard bar in range. Sadly, the times I have said this on other forums in the past, such comments have been received mostly with a mix of derision, disbelief, and resistance.

And for those who weren't around at the time, we lost a driver in the PNW back in the 80's under somewaht similar circumstances while cruising back from local practice; no helmet on at the time.

Mark B.

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starion887
Which is why it scares me to have people put cages in their street cars. Maybe they do it for rally crosses, sometimes to be cool, but it for sure needs some soft padding, tho' that won't totally fix losing the head space and having any hard bar in range. Sadly, the times I have said this on other forums in the past, such comments have been received mostly with a mix of derision, disbelief, and resistance.

And for those who weren't around at the time, we lost a driver in the PNW back in the 80's under somewaht similar circumstances while cruising back from local practice; no helmet on at the time.

Mark B.

I was around from in rally 84 onward....must have been earlier than that but I have never heard of that. Who when? And 81 to 84 lived in the Olympia area and was in the woods 3-4 times a month, and never heard of that.

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

I hit a bus in England in my caged mini, hit my head pretty good on the cage, but it was my own dammed fault because I didn't have my harness on... usual excuse, I was just going about 1/2 mile from the gas station to my friends house... 1st, 2nd, 3rd gear foot to the floor, slight corner... BUS in the middle of the road! There might have been enough room if I hadn't locked them up That was the first mini I totalled...
It's never worried me with the harness on, but they can't just be draped over your shoulders and plugged in, they have to be something resembling tight...

-Martin

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MRWmotorsports
I hit a bus in England in my caged mini, hit my head pretty good on the cage, but it was my own dammed fault because I didn't have my harness on... usual excuse, I was just going about 1/2 mile from the gas station to my friends house... 1st, 2nd, 3rd gear foot to the floor, slight corner... BUS in the middle of the road! There might have been enough room if I hadn't locked them up That was the first mini I totalled...
It's never worried me with the harness on, but they can't just be draped over your shoulders and plugged in, they have to be something resembling tight...

-Martin

And somehow I did 10s of thousands of miles in the car that outlasted the Mini at the top of the rally world with a cage in it and never died once

(I was designated driver when doing "real ale adventure" in deepest darket Surrey cause I could survive on 2 pints and after last calls going home up the lanes man did I learn quick what "INTO THE FAWKIN 'EDGE" meant.. Those fawkin hedges will bounce you right back so the boys would scream "FULL WELLIE AN 'OLD 'ER INto the 'edge 'ard FERFAWKSAKE!!!!!!!"

Always made it.. Never occurred to us to lift off the throttle.. not wif 4 big guys. Even now I just reflected, never lift...Oi!)

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Driving a caged car around on the street is like wearing a tuxedo all the time. Just because you look awesome in a tuxedo doesn't mean that it's not a colossal pain in the ass and ill suited to most of the activities you do on a day to day basis. Like, who's going to change their oil in a tuxedo? That's how practical a rally car is as a daily driver.

Anders

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Grassroots rally. It's what I think about.