Steve Pizzati Crashes at Eastern Creek

[logifuse]

The story's a bit overblown, & the Hamster references were unwarranted, but:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/new...-1225759579049

TOP Gear co-host Steve Pizzati stunned racegoers at Eastern Creek yesterday when he survived a spectacular crash in which his car flipped two and a half times in the air. Logifuse's note: It's a friggen race car you moron, they are built to survive crashes.

The larrikin motoring commentator and former race car driver amazingly walked away with just a "humdinger of a headache and a sore neck" after what some spectators described as the most spectacular crash of the year.

Pizzati was a guest driver along with Channel 7's Neil Crompton in the Aussie Racing Cars super series, held as the curtain-raiser to the Australian Superbikes Series.

After starting well back on the grid, Pizzati was coming into the final lap just behind the front-runners when caught up in a crash involving other cars.

"On the last lap the two guys in front of me banged wheels and hit me," he said. "I've got caught up in it and it's caused me to flip - I guess you would say two and a half times, because the car's ended up on its roof."

The high-speed crash destroyed the car's fibreglass shell but the internal steel frame remained largely intact, saving Pizzati from potentially life-threatening injuries.

It was a bad day for the Top Gear franchise overall, with UK presenter Richard Hammond involved in a four-car pile-up near his home in the village of Over, Gloucestershire, about midday local time on Saturday.

Hammond was reportedly shaken but uninjured in the accident, which trashed his treasured $220,000 1930s-style Morgan AeroMax, capable of reaching a speed of 273km/h.

The 39-year-old is no stranger to accidents, having survived a 450km/h crash in a dragster while filming for the hit BBC show.

[flydiscovery]

While the connection to the fender bender in Gloucestershire is tenuous at best (and flat out stupid to those of us with actual brains), Pizzati did make the comparision to Hammond himself on Twitter not long after the accident:
http://twitter.com/stevepizzati

"hmmm. There must be a curse on the youngest Top Gear presenters. Flipped the car 3 times in last race."

[brydiem]

My parents were at this race (and got a photo of him for me)- it was at one of the rounds of the Australian Superbike championships at Eastern Creek, in Sydney. From how they described it, it wasn't as bad as all the press is fluffing it out to be- they actually just said he was just a rubbish driver! :S

needless to say, I'm going next year. Sounded like an awesome day

[melbournian]

his twitter confused me when I first read it...I was thinking 'how the heck do you flip a car three times in one race and still keep going?' three times all at once though, I can understand that. From his account the first time he drove the car was in qualifying so it probably wasn't a spectacular performance. Still, wish I could see video of the crash...

[drnick]

Originally Posted by logifuse

The story's a bit overblown, & the Hamster references were unwarranted, but:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/new...-1225759579049

Overblown??

Well, it is the Daily Terrorgraph after all...its to be expected

[prizrak]

Wow a guy flips a race car on a racing circuit and they mention another guy getting into a fender bender.... Because that is absolutely the same.....

[flydiscovery]

TG.Au has a more reasonable and descriptive article including a handful of pictures.

[Elvis313]

Originally Posted by flydiscovery

TG.Au has a more reasonable and descriptive article including a handful of pictures.

And they even have a "Le Mans" movie reference above the article

[melbournian]

the pictures on the TG website are awesome. HANS FTMFW, btw.

[Das_Idiot]

the connection being two top gear presenters had automotive mishaps on the same day.

yeah it's not like they're connected, just sorta odd.

Calm down O_O

[flydiscovery]

Looking at those pictures, it still amazes me how people can just wander away from accidents like that. Geez that car flipped 2.5 times at what I assume was fairly high speed. I don't even want to think about the consequences of doing that in a road car with only a standard lap/shoulder belt and your skull for protection. What a fine example of better living (well, playing) through engineering.

[Reckoning]

Do a barrel roll.