Alan Perry's Blog

Tuesday December 04, 2007

Video from my big rally off last year

A few weeks ago, I was at the Volkswagen dealer picking up some parts for my car. I know one of the service writers there and, when I stopped by to say 'hi', he told me that he had seen me on TV. After probing some more, I figured out that it was coverage from the 2006 Prescott Rally.

That weekend, I had a one-off ride with Lisa Klassen and we were being followed around by an independent videographer (forget her name - doh!). She was putting together a piece about Lisa to air on current.

I don't remember that weekend because we had a video camera pointed at us all of the time. I remember it because it was there that I was involved in my biggest off (rally-speak for accident) ever.

What did it look like from the outside?

The title of this entry mentions video, so where is the video? Here is the video. Most of the segment is about Lisa, but the in-car from the accident starts at about 5:30.

Looks pretty bad, eh? Well, my injuries were limited to some cuts on my hands, lots of dirt in my eyes and undiagnosed neck injuries that I made worse by competing in rallies on the two consecutive weekends following the off. My neck finished finally completely healed over last summer.

What happened? Lisa wrote up the off on her web site. However, she doesn't quite get all of the facts straight. For example, I am not sure how she could have kicked open her door without lying across me and I would have remembered that!

Also, she didn't quite get the stage note right, but the notes in the book were basically correct, maybe a little tighter than noted. The sequence was a little tricky for faster cars and probably should have been cautioned because of an accident there at a previous running of the rally.

But Lisa was still going into it too fast for the sequence that I called. Unfortunately, by the time I realized she had gone in too fast, there was nothing that I could say to change the situation. The car went light and hit the ditch. The back end may have hit the bank hard and initiated the roll. As the car rolled, the front of the roof dug into the embankment and broke out the windscreen and this filled the car with dirt. The car stopped and we got out.

But why should I complain? I got on TV, right?

( Dec 04 2007, 02:36:54 AM PST ) Permalink