Nurburg, Germany - There’s a kind of inevitability about this video, posted on Facebook by Rival Motorsport, that just adds to the drama as 14 cars crunch, crumple and spin out of control on the Hatzenbach section of the Nordschleife.
Apparently it all started when a Porsche 911 GT3 RS blew a radiator hose; the smoke that you and the driver with the helmet cam see in the distance is actually steam, as the 911 belches the contents of its cooling system onto the circuit.
If there is one thing that’s oilier than oil, however, it’s a 50:50 mix of water and glycol (‘anti freeze) which is why racing cars are allowed only distilled water in their radiators. But this 911 was somebody’s road car and suddenly the Hatzenbech curve was slicker than an ice-rink.
Doing the right thing
Our helmet-cameraman does exactly the right thing; he pulls off the circuit, stops, waits for a break in the traffic, gets behind the Armco and runs back up the circuit trying to wave down the oncoming cars.
But some of them are going too fast to react in time, as car after car piles into the mayhem, at least one of them hitting the videographer’s parked car hard enough to bounce back onto the track and hit another two cars!
According to Bridge to Gantry 14 vehicles in total were involved; there were no fatalities, but one Audi TT driver had to be cut out of his car and taken to hospital, and another driver was injured.