Virginia City Hill Climb, Viper Crashes, 2 Dead

[Tom and Vipers]

RT10 driven by fellow from Incline Village NV with female passenger from Arizona went over the edge at turn 16, end over end, and came to a stop 250 feet down the steep bank.

There realy isn't much else I can say.

If anyone wishes to add to this thread, please do so.

Tom Hoosac

 

[treynor]

That's horrible, and is exactly why I'm not interested in hillclimbs.

 

[treynor]

Does anyone have the names of the unfortunates involved?

 

[Tom and Vipers]

I sort of hang around Ted and I'm pretty sure they were not associated.

They were Patrick Jemison, 42 and Virginia Davis, 43.

"Accidents like this are extremely rare. (Dean Benz) We've only had three fatalities in this race. The last accident was in the early 1980's.

Regarding corner 16, it is very scary since you are coming off one of the 2 "long" straightaways. This is the toughest, scariest part of the course in my opinion. Further, this area is no longer going up a hill and I have been told this corner has some reverse camber with a slight "whoop" that gets "bigger" when you turn up the wick.

However, I heard a race official state that a corner worked has said that they heard a bang or pop and saw something "roll" off the car before they went over.

One will never know if it was mechanical failure (brakes?), driver health failure (stroke?), or simply driver error. The crash investigators stated that they were not wearing seat belts but since they were not thrown from the car, belts were not an issue. How in the world can that be true? However, I believe The Government considers a 5-point racing harness to NOT be a seat belt. I know for a fact, when they start up the hill, Dean, looks in the car to make sure everything is buttoned up. I think that is cruel of the authorities to cast an "irreponsible" light on this accident. But I guess it was a great opportunity to plug seat belt law.

From what I have heard (heresay), Patrick was intimately familiar with the course, had participated in the past, was driving a different car for the 1st time at this event, and a friend of his who has gone with him driving on the hill says this was very unexpected.

 

[Marv S]

http://www.vchillclimb.org/

sad news

 

[bad viper]

Tom
Glad to see you are ok.I warned you in jest 2 days ago.

 

[Tom and Vipers]

Wayne,

My friends that attended were very concerned because the preliminary info was that a black Viper went over... and we all know what color Bad Viper is.

Amir's F40 went 3:10 a new record (something like 3:07 is 100 mph average).

Horzewski's fast blue Viper went 3:15 and I believe was the 2nd fastest. He was cooling it because of the fatalities and his 1 year old child was with him. He had aero this time. I believe I heard that he had a really big radar time. (I think he has a rocket engine in there somewhere...)

So I said to Amir that eventually someone was going to do a 2:59.9 and he said it would probably be a twin-turbo Viper with really big HP and a really big wing.

I guess there isn't any thing really big that really big money can't buy. ...however, the F40 and the Ruf and fully developed. I believe the Vipers, on the other hand, have much more potential.

 

[Wing King]

Did I read it correctly that they were NOT even wearing their SEAT BELTS???????? Participating in a high speed activity???? Unbelievable!!!!

How sad.

I'm almost afraid to ask..... were they wearing helmets???

 

[silverviper]

I'm sure they were wearing seatbelts, Dean checks each car before it leaves the start. Probably a misquote by a reporter...weren't wearing harnesses, weren't wearing seatbelts, same thing right?

Anyway, it's pretty tragic and I wish well for the families.

That said, unless it was a mechanical failure (possible), I agree with Ted's summary. There's no reason anyone should be pushing hard enough to lose control on the first run.

The goal is always safety, fun, speed, in that order. If I take some ribbing about being slow...so what. I still have a blast driving as quickly as I feel comfortable.

I'd hate to see the VC Hill Climb get shutdown because of this incident. We race by choice, and I'd like to keep that choice.

Other than this incident, it was a really great weekend.

Thank you to Ted and Stephanie for hosting the BBQ and thank you to all the Valaya guys for their help!

 

[WCKDVPR]

Tom,

I enjoyed meeting you at the event this year.

I would like to express my sincerest regards to the family and friends of Patrick and Virginia.

The Vipers did really well at the Hill Climb this year and can claim top marque at the event.

Some unofficial time results are (5.2 miles):
1st Amir Rosenbaum, F40 3:10.***, new overall record
2nd Mike Horzewski, Viper GTS 3:15.1xx, new naturally aspirated record
3rd Ted May, Viper GTS 3:21.9xx
4th Steve Beddor, RUF CTR 2 3:22.***

Unofficial top speeds (just before turn 8 by the 25 mph corner sign):
1st Steve Beddor 140 mph
2nd Amir Rosenbaum 138+ mph
3rd Randy Harris (Corvette - very quiet and making lots of whistling noises) 134 mph
The others:
Mike Horzewski 133 mph
Ted May 128 mph

Of note, all the top cars were running slicks and aero devices. I have Datacam data from the previous record run of 3:12 in the RUF CTR 2 and I can tell you that my Viper was going faster through the corners than the RUF. However, at 6000 feet of altitude, we just can't turn up the boost like the F40 and RUF do to compensate for the thin air. Best estimates for lbs/hp at 6000 feet look something like this:
Amir's F40 5.6 lbs/hp (bone stock numbers and he freely admits it isn't even close), more like 4.7 - 4.8 lbs/hp.... or better
Steve's RUF 5.9 lbs/hp (again bone stock numbers - and it isn't, given faster radar speeds than Amir, you be the judge)
Mike's Viper GTS 7.9 lbs/hp (real numbers) no "rocket engine", just heads, extrude honed intake, and exhaust on a stock bottom end with the stock cam and stock 3.07 rear end. Which says a lot for the Viper. Thanks to Ted May et al for the work on my car and the endless track support (and the dollar

).
Bottom line is us naturally aspirated guys are getting our butts kicked on acceleration!

This means for a Viper to be in the power game, we would need either a ton of naturally aspirated hp (> 1000 SAE corrected) or forced induction. As for me, all of the above plus I would have to learn how to drive.

Someone who can drive needs to show up with one of these twin turbo or blower Vipers (and keep it on the road). It would be nice for a Viper to take the record.

A good place to check out past events (with pics) is http://www.nsxfiles.com/stories.htm
go to Chapter 70 2001 Virginia City Hill Climb or Chapter 51 for the 2000 recap.

Best regards,

 

[Tom and Vipers]

...regarding not wearing seatbelts.

I believe there was a thread or two on this site complaining how a 5-pt harness is NOT a seatbelt... and that you can get a seat belt ticket from the Police while wearing your 5-pt.

"not wearing seatbelts" I am sure was a statement from some beaurocratic pin head promoting the above "thinking."

I think that statement was slander and makes me boiling mad.

A lot of people will think the Hill Climb folks are a bunch of reckless, scof-laws who are a danger to themselves and perhaps others. ...not to mention the slander on Dean who checks belts when you stage and the Audi Club.

Also, regarding the crash investigation. A lot of people saw it from the spectator point up by the pits. I was there a lot of the time and there were people who saw the crash first hand and I didn't hear any mention of their interview. And of course, the second hand information that a corner worker who stated he heard something and saw something "roll" off the car. Was that pursued aggressively? I don't recall anyone at the spectator area, where everyone was watching the cleanup carefully, mention anything about searching upstream of the crash site.

Of course, the chances are that everything Ted said was correct and very, very bad judgement was at hand. (Further, the question was did this fellow know the girl? If he didn't, he could have fallen for the "Joe Racecar" thing...)

However, what bothers me is that there is some information that suggests that a mechanical failure could have occured. And from what I saw, this avenue may not have been pursued diligently. Let's face it, it is easy to close out the NDOT investigation because basically a race car went off a race course.

I'll bet a lot of people, first time up were posting fast times and fast radars.

Ted has mentioned a lot of ideas to keep people in check during the 1st couple of runs. I agree that some kind of deterant might be effective.

Perhaps, the first or first 2 runs would be practice with no timing. So there would be no rewards for flamboyant behavior.

I'm really looking forward to next years event.

...and I'm really looking forward to see what Ted and his buddies do next year too! (although Ted was talking about bring his caged Camaro next year... BOO HOO)

(I still think there is a rocket engine in that blue Viper...)