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Video: Historic Motorsport is Dangerous

Submitted by on October 23, 20129 Comments

Duncan Pittaway gets sideways in his 8.2 Litre GN Vitesse and it brutally spits him out onto the Oulton Park tarmac. Duncan thankfully only ended up with a sore head and a broken collarbone,  but should historic racing vehicles have roll cages and seat belts? Discuss.

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  • Matthias Schonder

    @Rolf-Ingo Strackerjan

    “No way..if these drivers cannot drive these cars”

    that’s a total bullshit! First accidents are not always related to the drivers skills and second most of the cars are driven by their owners who are mostly not professional drivers… that’s there hobby!

  • Paal Hanson

    There are but two options here imho, ban and stop racing the classic cars or let them race as they where/are.

    It would be a historical crime to alter these cars with roll bars.

    The drivers know what they do and what they are in for.

    There are however a very good reason to insist on HANS devices to be used as soon as someone is racing a car with roll bars, belts and all.

    From a personal point of view I would never save on safety equipment, and HANS is truly a life saver when used with at good modern helmet.

  • marco

    This is real racing.
    Now the motorsport racing is too oppressed, not much dangerous and this is bad.
    the possibility of dying there must be and have to not be little… it’s what makes the difference between the drivers. Remember this.
    The modern motorsport are dying also for this.

  • Barry

    Roll cage argument will be here forever.
    Those following drivers should NOT have stopped like they did. Made a bad situation positively dangerous.

  • PCz

    We forget that racing was a VERY dangerous occupation when these cars were new and campaigned in anger. That these vehicles are still dangerous is obvious, BUT why would we want to stop free thinking adults from racing them if they so choose? It’s an activity which they recognize the danger and still pursue. Mandating changes is the ‘nanny state’ at work.

  • Gzav

    With a seatbelt, he would be probably dead in this case.

  • http://www.facebook.com/rennwagenreinhard Reinhard Halbgewachs

    The real “problem” is that modern tires build up much more grip than they used to – even if they are the original size. That is why cars tend to roll over much easier.

  • http://www.facebook.com/kb8yjv Mark Arnold

    I think they could be a little clever and make something that is either removable or not to intrusive, he was really lucky. When some body gets maimed there will be a problem. These are not like they were, as pointed out, the tires and tracks are a lot stickier than they were.

  • jonny

    Senna sportsmenship right there. Not too many drivers out there who would stop to jump out and check on a fellow racer. Life is the most epic finish line to cross.