It didn't look to me as if the car actually did clip the photographer...the car seemed several feet away from him. I wonder if the spray from the tires was hard enough to knock the camera from his hand? Or maybe he just freaked, as any sane person might.
Who cares about the @#$%ing camera? I hope he's okay. He's been hit; no doubt about it. Given the height I'd say the mirror got him in the head. Apart from that the car would have smashed the camera back into his face and given how far it flew, I'd be amazed if he wasn't hurt.
The photographer in that video, in my humble opinion, is an absolute idiot and he was lucky to get away with his life!
It is the action of careless spectators like this which spoil the sport for everyone and rallying is dangerous enough already!
I am a professional motorsport photographer, both rally and circuit stuff. The golden rule is never encumber your movement because if you are lying or sitting down and a car comes flying off the track - which lets face it in rallying frequently happens - you are dead, there is not even enough time to think to yourself 'oh sh.t!'.
Ideally there should be marshals at every major spectator area, in world events there usually are but for national/local events there are simply not enough marshals to go around. The majority of marshals volunteer for rallies, they are hardly paid anything, they do it for the love of the sport and do their best for the safety of the drivers and the spectators. Who cops the brunt of the accusations if a rally spectator is killed? Marshals.
Sorry for the rant but this kind of totally stupid spectator behaviour really - expletive deleted - me off.
Here's a different YouTube of the same incident showing a bit more of the aftermath...the photography can be seen moving but he/she definately seems hurt.
The photographer was probably an amateur, hopefully a professional would know better than to stand so close to the track, especially in an area where the driver has no visibility of the track ahead.
That said, it does look he got hurt bad and sure hope it was not serious. Brings to mind my question - there are so many situations where someone gets their 15 minutes of fame or news exposure but we seldom hear the follow-up story, did they live, were the injuries severe, what happened afterward?
EB-1 wrote:
Which countries have such races as entertainment? It seems crazy to me that there are no fixed barriers to protect the spectators.
EBH
Rallying is pretty much international, the WRC (http://www.wrc.com/) visits many countries.
Given that most rallies are run over closed public roads, forest tracks, deserts etc., it is almost impossible to line the route with barriers and even then, if you put barriers up, to a) keep the spectators in place and b) act as debris fences, the barriers would need to be 10ft high!
Rallying is a dangerous sport and every year a handful of spectators do get killed, mostly through stupid actions as displayed in those clips and given the high speed of the cars it is surprising that many more are not killed or injured but every year the sport becomes more safety conscious.
Even the odd farm animal gets on the wrong end of a rally car from time to time too, ever seen a sheep get hit by a Evo doing 70mph!! It wasn't a pretty sight!
If that frightens you, you should never attend a motorcycle road racing event like the Isle of Man or off road races like Paris-Dakar (even though it was held in South America this year) or any World Rally events. Thank god there are still some sports left that the safety Nazi’s have yet to ruin.
F1 was that way years ago. I remember standing on the dog leg at the old Silverstone track in the UK the year that Nigel Mansell won the British Gran Prix over Nelson Piquet (a Brit winning the British Gran Prix). Those cars were decelerating from somewhere around 180 mph to 60 mph to make that dog leg. As I was standing there with those cars coming straight at me I was thinking, if one of those drivers lost control completely (they all looked like they were loosing control), 100 spectators would lose their lives. I left and went down the track a ways Nothing enhances the quality of the sport like putting your own life at risk by simply being a spectator. Ah, the good old days...
By the way, you should have seen that crowd come unstuck when Nigel came from twenty seconds behind to win that race. He was so low on gas that he ran out on his way to the winners circle after the race was over. The fans flooded the track and pushed him to the circle. It was an epic moment in sports. One I'll remember for the rest of my life. On second thought, do attend one of these events. You'll never forget it.
As far as the guy who was clipped by the Rally car, they should have planted him on the spot even if he was alive just for being stupid.
Nothing enhances the quality of the sport like putting your own life at risk by simply being a spectator. Ah, the good old days...