WRC, Morocco Desert Challenge, Olympia, Swank, Desert Master. An invasion of different rallies with a common goal: to entertain and excite. But the rules of safety are unique, and sometimes they are not at the forefront
4 maggio 2023
MoroccoApril. The video is chilling. A racing car launched on the beach. Camera car and random amateur pictures. And the Marocco Desert Challenge. Very high speed. The car passes in front of the camera and goes off like a missile. Suddenly, in the distance, it seems to explode. Find an obstacle, a speed bump, and indeed, explode. The crew is saved, unharmed, the safety cage held. But that flight with a suicidal taste it seems to be one more, one completely gratuitous, inadmissible too much. What’s the point of all that speed for its own sake? Nobody. Same days, same Rally, a navigator dies in a freak accident. The accident in the dust, a car hits the SSV Polaris of Patrice Garrouste at high speed, it says 140 per hour, on the navigator’s side. Laurent chandelier is bruciato, it is said “on the spot”. If you mean the blow from the other car, I believe that instantly the friend and Extreme Plus driver lost consciousness and life, unfortunately I believe it less. It seems like an expedient to eliminate the component of suffering from the picture of the tragedy. Absurd, useless. How to say he died a little better. Same days, same Rally, the Dutch motorcyclist dies Bram van der Wouden. 48 years old, he was preparing for the Dakar 2024. They find him next to the bike. Exhausted, dehydrated. Heat stroke, they say. his quel rally Rudy Briani post a comment that is a burst to zero. Sensible. Rudy Briani is a pro. Navigator, organizer, expert.
It’s a bad time. Dramatic two weeks. More tragedies in the Car Rally. Rally Croatia WRC, pre-event. Craig Breen. The car sideways and the impact of a fence post entering through the window of the Irish driver. Then the accidents in Spain. Julio Cesar Castrillo and the navigator Francisco Javier Alvarez perished during the Villa de Tineo Rally, e il the ball David Lopez Tomico deceased at Rallysprint of San Bartolomé de Pinares. The moment is even worse because most have added the danger of the Rally-Raid to the danger of the Rally. which are actually quite different worlds.
Journalistic sensationalism. Let’s rewind the tape, otherwise it looks like we’re doing it too. Let’s admit the intrinsic and evident danger of Motorsport. We also consider the fatality, which could be the platform for all the fatalities that have been talked about. Not to dismiss the matter as inevitable but to establish one neutral basis on which to develop an analysis that is as cold and objective as possible. It is neither the time nor the place to say that those accidents could have been avoided. Here we are interested in seeing if there is a way to try to avoid more and more of them in the future. I think so. That way is already in the main rule of success, primacy, marketing and image. Certainly in Sport, and in life. That rule is DO BETTER.
OK, let’s talk about Security. There is only one way to do better, to strive for maximum safety. First. Starting from higher standard and apply it to safer condition of danger management. That is: on the one hand make the most of resourceshuman, economic, technical and skills, and on the other hand inventing, establishing and imposing rules that offer an increase in the danger threshold. Second. Don’t set standardsbut continuously raise its level starting each time from the one previously reached. The Dakar is an example. It is not without defects of various kinds, but in terms of safety it has become intransigent and continues to improve itself relentlessly. Because of this the Dakar is the reference. It will be said that the accident, that death is less and less “popular”, and that therefore safety is also a marketing requirement. Nevermind, this doesn’t change the universal validity of the goal. So. If the Dakar has X doctors, Y vehicles, Z infrastructures per number of Competitors, this report must be taken as a reference, and the organizer under this indexwhich we will call minimum security threshold, does not have a safe Rally, it’s not up to par, cannot be admitted. It will be said, again, that Security costs money and only the Dakar can afford such resources. Tant pis, that’s the minimum level, if you can’t reach it open an ice cream kiosk on the dune and you’ll have better luck, don’t expect to organize a Rally.
Then there are the rules. Also in this case the queen of Rally-Raids, the Dakar, teaches. Sometimes proposing winning rules, sometimes… wrong and in any case paving the way for revision. In this sense, a lot of work is done on the road book, therefore on navigation, and on speed limits. the progressive transformation of roadbook keep helping, i speed limits they are a double-edged sword. First because when it is said 150-160 per hour in the Desert we are still talking about crazy speedssecond because, as we have seen for example in the double, almost simultaneous accident of the Audis of Sainz and Peterhansel, sometimes the limit leads to going fast where you should go slowly. And to exaggerate. In truth I don’t like the Balance Of Performance either. The balance of performance, obtained by applying limiting or leveling factors, horses, weight, if on the one hand it cuts the wings of the healthy and pure inventiveness of the technicians, on the other shift making a difference to risk.
Then, again, the dangers. These are generally indicated by a specific note on the roadbook and “recommended” at briefings. This dictates that the roadbook is done very well and that the contestants interpret it perfectly precisely hovering over those notes. He is not obvious. Again the Audi accident. If Sainz and “Peter” had passed exactly on the note they would have descended gently from the dune. A few meters on each side, to cut a few meters of the path, and they are flew down the precipice of the cut dune. I try to say: we turn dangerous spots into waypointsin the sense let’s make them search and find with difficulty through the instrumentation, and we think of a controlled speed and a nightmarish beep, read Sentinel, when you enter the danger radius. The technology is there. A little work and it might work, I think.
Idee Rare. Every day there is someone who has an idea. Sometimes one is simple and ingenious. Swank Rally Marocco e Desert Master Tunisia. The race-not race of Deus lower the top speed even at 110 KM/H. It may be said that it’s not a race, but it’s an idea to work on even on actual Rally-Raids. On certain traits like that of the chilling video, for example. Edo Mossi changes everything, vision and… march with a concept that, in truth, we have yet to discover in its application. His Desert Master Tunisian next October, unedited, regulates the gearbox with reduced gearsand at briefings I highly recommend bringing the tire pressure below 1 bar. Ergo, the race is measured on other parameters, e the comparison moves to other levels of skill. At reduced speed and increased safety. I would bet no less fun and interesting.
© Immagini Red Bull Content Pool, W2R Championship – DPPI – Toyota – BRX – Sonora Rally
Rally-Raid. Reality. Safety. Tragedies
