http://sports.yahoo.com/nascar ... amp;prov=ap&type=lgns

Sad news as always. 27, married two kids. Second V8 driver in a year.

RIP and thoughts and prayers to the family.

Quote :

Ashley Cooper, from Ulladulla in New South Wales state, was critically injured when his vehicle hit a safety barrier at the exit of a corner at more than 120 mph.
Cooper was attended to by senior medical personnel at the Clipsal 500 support race and was taken by ambulance to Royal Adelaide Hospital, where he remained in a coma and on life support until his death.
He was married and had two young children.
Race officials said Cooper had severe head trauma, swelling of the brain and internal injuries following the accident on the 11th lap of the second and final series race of the weekend.

Cooper made heavy, side-on contact with a safety barrier at the eighth turn. The initial contact was to the driver’s side of the vehicle before the car veered across the track and hit the opposite wall with the rear-end.

Rip

Damn shame... Married father of two goes like that. Didn't look like much of a crash either to be honest. The Utes crash looked much worse even though Ashely was going at a much faster pace when he crashed.

I'm glad I'm a sim racer...

Watched some news about this earlier, really sick crash.
R.I.P.

To many big crashes this weekend at adelaide. R.I.P Ashely!

This is Ashleys fatal crash word is the rollcage failed. I think they really need to look at these cars its 2 deaths in the development series in under 2 years.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_Nl1B4VB5s

This is the massive Ute crash that luckily nobody was seriously injured.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSeObpG0Zjs

Quote from sil3ntwar :

This is Ashleys fatal crash word is the rollcage failed. I think they really need to look at these cars its 2 deaths in the development series in under 2 years.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_Nl1B4VB5s

I'm afraid to say that I'm in no way suprised that crash was fatal. Unusually for modern racing it looked like a single car accident, whether due to driver error or mechanical failure is unclear. What's clear is that it was a huge drivers side impact at a nasty angle with little speed scrubbed off, I have no idea what kind of speed they're doing through there but I'd guess that was an impact speed of well over 100mph, which one simply cannot expect to reliably survive. The news article clearly states that all the safety devices worked correctly and the rollcage does not look like it has failed to protect the driver, despite the fact it is surely way beyond its design limits with those kinds of forces.

Like I always say the first and most important way to reduce the danger of motor racing is simply to crash less, we're far too used to lucky escapes that when someone doesn't just climb out of a wrecked car we're taken back, but the truth is you can only keep on like this for so long before motorsport slips back into the dark days, the only way of making racing safer if people insist on crashing is to slow the cars (not the tracks) down, if this had been 10 years ago I'd put my money on the driver in this case not daring to push so hard, with less of the somewhat false sense of security modern drivers seem to have gained, and subsequently not having the accident in the first place. It worries me when people see a crash like Kubica's and then state that it was no way near a fatal accident and that they were genuinely suprised when he didn't just climb out and do a hand stand

Seen quite a few cars go hard into there over the last few years and always wondered why there wasn't at least a row of tyres or some kind of protection for the wall. Approach speed is about 140-145mph for the main V8 Supercars (probably about 5-10mph less for the development cars) and the apex speed for the V8 Supercars is about 130-135mph. It's crazy to have no protection for the wall there and sadly it's going to take a driver fatality to get some form of protection up there. If there isn't anything there next year I'll be amazed. They said in the video he clipped the entry armco, so either he made a driving error and turned in too early or he had a brake/car problem and was trying to scrub off speed.

As for the track, it's certainly dangerous but I can understand why there isn't a tire wall there, most of the time it would make life far more dangerous increasing the chance of a car catching the wall and being suddenly decelerated and left in the middle of the track rather than just having a glancing blow setting up the an unavoidable full speed T-bone, simply the worst accident possible in pretty much any car. This exact chain of events led to the fatal T-bone in the Brazilian stock cars at Interlagos last year.

I suppose the bend probably does need looking at and a decision will have to be made as to whether the cars will have to be slowed before it (assuming due to being a true street circuit a run off area is not possible). I don't see a reason why the bend couldn't be left like it is, and drivers would just have to try and avoid crashing there, they all knew the risk but I'm sure until this will be a wake up call to the true risk of an accident in a dangerous place and the chance of clipping the apex wall from trying to hard or making car to car contact will be dramatically reduced and the knock on effect to safety will be far greater than any barrier improvements ever will be.

Rest In Peace, very sad

Yet another fatal side impact, the advent of better harnesses, crash testing and the HANS device have made frontal impacts far safer, however not much has been done to protect the driver from side impacts, notice how nearly all the fatal accidents in top level motorsport recently have been side impacts. Harnesses and the HANS device do NOT protect the driver against lateral forces, only longitudinal, yes special raised seat sides are often a reasonable solution, but these arent mandatory, perhaps they should be. Also obviously there is barely any protection between the driver and whatever is outside!

I really think the drivers of tin tip cars should be positioned closer to the cars centre, for extra protection, how long before we have another one of these horrible accidents?

Plus does anyone think that corner is particularly dangerous?

Quote from 5haz :

Rest In Peace, very sad

Yet another fatal side impact, the advent of better harnesses, crash testing and the HANS device have made frontal impacts far safer, however not much has been done to protect the driver from side impacts, notice how nearly all the fatal accidents in top level motorsport recently have been side impacts. Harnesses and the HANS device do NOT protect the driver against lateral forces, only longitudinal, yes special raised seat sides are often a reasonable solution, but these arent mandatory, perhaps they should be. Also obviously there is barely any protection between the driver and whatever is outside!

I really think the drivers of tin tip cars should be positioned closer to the cars centre, for extra protection, how long before we have another one of these horrible accidents?

Plus does anyone think that corner is particularly dangerous?

He was faced on the opposite side of the impact though. So I couldn't imagen what would of happened if he was sitting on the other side.

Quote from 5haz :

I really think the drivers of tin tip cars should be positioned closer to the cars centre, for extra protection, how long before we have another one of these horrible accidents?

Plus does anyone think that corner is particularly dangerous?

We are RH side drivers here so he couldn't have been further away from the wall it must have just been the shear forces invloved. Here the news didn't just mention head injuries he also recieved alot of other internal injuries.

Sad to see he died.

But that corner is a great corner and I'd hate to see it changed too much, as ajp71 says in most cases it isn't too unsafe as the cars would be making glancing blows to the wall not full impacts like that. If they do something to that corner it should be with the appex and not the wall.

I actually think racing is fairly safe even though we have had some fatalities recently, in reality there is always and will always be some fatalities in motor sport, it's not about eliminating them entirely but rather ruducing them as much as possible. Far more die on public roads every week, that's were it is really unsafe!

Such sad news.

Saw it live on the TV, as Glenn67 said, it's usually a pretty good corner, it's not very often that anyone hits it as hard as Cooper Did.

A horrible way to start the season, my thoughts & prayers go out to his Family & Friends.

SAFER (steel and foam energy reduction) barriers could have done a lot to help reduce some of the forces going to the driver in that corner.

Thats a nasty hit in a nasty corner.

I feared the worst when I saw the video on youtube and read that he had serious head injuries and internal bleeding. R.I.P

Quote from srdsprinter :

SAFER (steel and foam energy reduction) barriers could have done a lot to help reduce some of the forces going to the driver in that corner.

Exactly. There shouldn't be any bare concrete or steel barriers facing the circuit at an angle like that in any high-level racing series in the world.

I wasnt suprised that a crash took place there tbh that is a death trap and obviously its taken its first victem.
I just wonder why they dont remove that barrier that goes round the corner so its wider and possibly more safe.

I was hoping he would pull through it, but it really is quite sad

RIP mate

That looked like one hell of a nasty crash. I crashed into a wall just like he did, but in a kart. It really hurt, even though I was only doing 30 to 40kmh. Imagine how hard his crash must've been!

R.I.P Ashley
Damn that turn 8, its so atractive corner, and makes some great passes after it but things like this make you hate it =/

R.I.P Ashley

RIP Ashley Cooper

I read an article about the crash on AOL on Sunday. The YouTube-link was added but YouTube was down. The article compares this crash with other non-fatal crashes from NASCAR but also the flips in the IRL. As I am not that great in the English language (for some reason the link on my German AOL account was directing me to the English article) I thought it would be another sectacular non-fatal crash. Also the article didn't mention the force, and the seriousnes of the injuries.

It's quiet shooking as I thought the driver would at least survive.

RIP

even that i dont know him,

its very said for him and his famaly ,

motor sport is somethink nice , but saidly enough, everything that is nice will cost some lifes somehow.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/65320

At least they are going to do something about safety.

They need to, really that crash was nasty, but in series like Nascar, a hit like that wouldnt happen anything.
They seriously need to improve safety in those cars

RIP

Well it says they might switch to purpose built race cars, hopefully keeping the same look of the cars, but with more safety. Suprised it has taken this long considering how dangerous some of the tracks they race on are, thrilling tracks to watch racing on though but nobody wants to see people die when it could be avoided.