Allan Simonsen Fatal Crash
Watch this video and tell me what you see happening. The video is not graphic. It shows the car at a distance bouncing off the guardrail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIVpzKqCLBE
This is what I see:
It’s obvious that the cars were losing traction when they hit the paint. The car in front of him spun out and smoked tires on the paint. That melted the paint and Simonsen had no traction on the left. His rear began to drift left (like two other cars did in front of him) and Simonsen spun his steering left to break the skid, but the tires dug in after they left the paint and the result was a hard left turn.
This would not have happened on snow or ice, where everyone learns to turn into direction the rear is skidding to straighten out, since the ice ans snow are usually more than a short patch like the paint line. Natural reaction to a skid got him into the guardrail at high speed.
Update:
They did not put enough “grippy stuff” in that patch of blue paint, 3 cars spun out on it in just a few minutes. Simonsen would have too, but for some reason he went hard left. Maybe steering or suspension snapped or jammed when he compensated, but if not for that paint, there would have been no crash.
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Anyone who has driven a rear wheel drive car in the wet will tell you that going onto large patches of white paint on the road while cornering is a bad idea. I’m not an experienced motorcyclist, but I suspect one would say something similar.
Despite recent technological advances to make the paint more “grippy” there is still a change in grip when you move from tarmac to paint, which is exacerbated in the wet.
Source(s): I’ve had a few rear wheel drive cars over the years, and I haven’t spared the horses when driving them.
Visually, the track looks fairly dry in most video and pictures I’ve seen., although all characterizations I’ve read say it was either wet or damp (and there was certainly rain). So it seems likely that while the track may have been largely dry or drying, the painted areas were probably still quite slick as they usually take longer to dry out (and while wet, most drivers will avoid them due to their complete lack of grip).
Simonsen was being fairly aggressive on the berms, which would put his line out in the paint at times – an approach that could work on a drying track, but one that (obviously in hindsight) have some dangers. But it’s not as simple as looking at it as “if this happened on ice or snow;” any driver that has reached the height of Le Mans has been driving successfully for quite some time. They are aware of what to do in a spin both in a sense of trying to “save” it, as well as the unpredictable nature of surfaces with different levels of traction and making the call that it can’t be saved and doing all that can be don to go off in a straight line. Of course in that spot, there is not much that can be done given the amount of runoff and the speeds involved (if you had the data from the car, you’d probably see that what little could be tried by the driver was done).
As far as “grippy stuff” in the paint? No such thing… painted surfaces are extremely slick when they are wet or even damp (Laguna Seca is the track where I race most often, and even on mornings with heavy fog I will stay off the berms for that very reason: they are slick and unpredictable. Once things are sunny and dry I will get very aggressive in with most of the berms and the grip is fine).
So yes, it seems very likely that this was at least a factor. I’ve not seen too much mentioned of it, but there was a car that lost an engine in the same area shortly before, seems possible a small amount of oil may have been down there as well? Very sad and unfortunate no matter the specifics causes.
@Paul S “As far as “grippy stuff” in the paint? No such thing… painted surfaces are extremely slick when they are wet or even damp”
I beg to differ: the technology might not have made it as far as the US yet, but it does exist over here in Europe. As an example, Cyberoad Ultra Grip paint is available as a higher-grip alternative so standard road paints. “No such thing”…you might want to have a little google before you are so adamant in future.