A woman crashed a replica Indy race car into a wall at a high rate of speed and died while taking part in the Mario Andretti Driving Experience at a Southern California motor speedway.Stock cars are a lot more robust with lots of protection around the driver. It's unlikely that hitting the wall in one of the Richard Petty cars would kill a driver. They also are required to follow behind a pace car, so even though they may get up to more than 150 mph, they're well within the capabilities of the car and the racetrack, even if the driver's a rookie.
The San Bernardino County coroner's office says 24-year-old Ashley Phalen of Los Angeles was killed early Friday when her vehicle slammed into a wall and overturned at the Auto Club Motor Speedway in Fontana. She died at a nearby hospital.
Phalen was participating in what is described on andrettiracing.com as the "World's Fastest Racing Experience." The website says people can drive a race car with 600 horsepower for an eight-minute session and reach speeds up to 160 mph.
I'm not sure what the procedure is for the Mario Andretti program, though I imagine it's similar. I'll be interested to hear whether the accident was caused by driver error or by some type of mechanical malfunction in the car.
UPDATE: Another report-
A Los Angeles woman died after she crashed during a class at the Auto Club Speedway.
Ashley Sara Phalen, 24, was participating in the Mario Andretti Racing Experience when she crashed at 9:32 a.m., according to a San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner's Department news release.
The Mario Andretti Racing Experience allows members of the public to drive "replica Indy 500" race cars around a two-mile track, according to the news release.
Cars can reach speeds of up to 120 miles per hour.
Phalen overturned when the car she was driving crashed into the inside wall at the Speedway at a high rate of speed. There was no information on precisely how fast she was driving.
She was taken to Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Fontana where she was declared dead shortly after her arrival.
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2 comments:
My son and I were at the track Friday for him to have a three-lap ride in a two-place IndyCar. We arrived at 12:30 for the 1 pm ride and found other drivers sitting around awaiting for "activity to resume." We left at 3:30 with a rain check as track didn't reopen. The officials were pretty close-mouthed about what happened.
I did the Andretti experience at the Vegas track last week; it was just awesome!! However, this is the real deal here people. 150+ mph on a superspeedway... if you get into a corner late and miss your mark then try to overcorrect, you could easily put the car into a slide with the inevitable result.
You have to love the fact that there are still places where you can do these things but at these speeds accidents are a definite possibility!
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