Remembering Gonzo

[Liz]

It was three years ago today that Gonzo Rodriguez lost his life. He was on his way to a drive with Penske, and he was so happy ... much like Roland Ratzenberger in 1994, his was the bellwether of more terrible things to come ... as another driver who had just signed with Penske, one Greg Moore, followed him into Glory ...

I was in Monza for the F1 race when I opened the Gazzetta to read the news, and I told those on the bus who did not read Italian what had happened. We were a somber group when we reached the track, for in these safety-conscious days we don't hear such terrible news often enough to "get used to it".

The only good that came from his death was the HANS device, which has saved the lives of Roberto Moreno and Mauricio Gugelman definitely and others probably, since then, and that's just in CART.

Gonzo was a happy young man and we can remember him with a smile as he is now busy with the Heavenly Racing Team and all those who have gone before.

We won't forget you Gonzo!

[ghinzani]

Nice words. Quality racer he was.

was he really signe with penske for the next year? so it would have been Gonzo and Moore rather than Gil and Helio?

[JohnnyBravo]

I met Gonzo a few times at parties (in the off season of course!!) A really nice guy, sadly missed by all.

[Jay]

He was a racer at the beginning of his career, proud of his country and was going to put Uruguay on the racing map. It's sad that he had to die so young with so much talent yet to be shown.

May we never forget him.

[paulzinho]

Sadly missed, a great talent taken so young.

[Fan]

I was at the track when it happened. The first time I'd ever been at a circuit when someone has died. Still gives me the shivers. The whole place went completely quiet... He was a great guy and a brilliant driver.

[BootsOntheSide]

He certasinly was a good driver, but I'm sure it would've been Gil and greg at Penske in 2000. Gonzo would have just had a few races to put himself in the shop window. He certasinly was doing well at that point. The safety conditions at that corkscrew corner were pretty dismal really, and I think that, rather than the lack of a HANS device or similar, was what took him from us.

Greg's death is an even greater 'what if?'- could he have beaten Gil to those 2 titles? What would have become of Helio after Carl Hogan closed the team down?

[Ben 93 325is]

There's not a doubt in my mind that Gonzo would have been one of the great class acts in CART. On this somber day of rememberence for the whole country, it's good to take a moment and think of those who gave all for our beloved sport. Thanks Liz.

Gonzo, Greg, Ayrton, Dale, Jeff, Roland, Adam and all the others too numerous to list...gone to race in a better place!

[Jordi]

Gonzalo was just trying to show his undoubted talents, as Gil and Greg were signed for 2000. He could very well be in CART or F1 now, as he was second in F3000 at Sept. 11th, 1999.

Gonzalo, very much missed...

[f1manoz]

Every time his name is mentioned I have visions of his sickening accident. Just terrible.....

But he's joined the long list of drivers who are in a better place.

[Lee Janotta]

Originally posted by BootsOntheSide
The safety conditions at that corkscrew corner were pretty dismal really, and I think that, rather than the lack of a HANS device or similar, was what took him from us.

Agreed. The wall on the entrance to the Corkscrew was an accident waiting to happen. It just never occured to anyone that it was a dangerous situation, because so few accidents, much less fatalities, had ever happened at that part of the track. It's not fair to say this or that should have been done in retrospect... It's not like Tamborello, a corner where track owners and the sanctioning body _knew_ for _years_ there was a problem and did nothing.

I've never heard anything about the autopsy. Was it actually the decelleration on impact with the wall that killed Gonzo, or was it the upside-down landing? The HANS device wouldn't have helped in the latter case.

I still don't think it's appopriate to require the HANS on any road courses... I've seen a lot more stupid accidents in traffic since it became widespread, it might be limiting the driver's field of vision too much.

What's more, I think it's extremely dangerous to put so much focus on this one restraint device, and claim that the problem is solved. It just doesn't work that way. CART can claim some of the best safety standards in racing, and the Simple Green safety crew and traveling medical team have no counterparts in other series (which is really a shame!).

But there are four main factors in determining safety during on-track sessions: Concept and design of circuits, impact-absorbing properties and structural integrity of vehicles, controllability of vehicles, and cockpit environment.

The track factor is pretty simple, and I think has been overemphasized in the last 8 years, thanks to the FIA. Most road courses are already very safe: They're not designed to kill people! The most basic principal is to make sure a car will decelerate over time, not all at once. So no blunt walls without significant runoff _and_ energy-absorbing barriers at the end of straightaways where significant speeds can be attained. This was the case at both Tamburello and the entrance to the Corkscrew. If a driver can burn off speed hitting a wall at a shallow angle, he'll be okay. You don't need to put chicanes blindly all over the track, or cut it in half, which thankfully CART has never asked anyone to do.

But then you've got ovals.... Sorry people, I know I'm going to get booed here, but I think superspeedways are death traps... You're just asking for too much from man and machine to expect something won't go wrong during a race, and on one of these monsters, there's really nothing you can do once the car gets away from you. And if you have enough high-speed impacts with concrete walls, eventually someone's going to get hurt, or killed... It's not a matter of the cars getting too fast for the circuits.... The circuits have just always been too fast, and suffered from much higher death rates than road courses. If I had the choice of doing the full Nurburgring for 3 hours in an old Lotus 49, or 5 laps at Fontana flat-out in a brand new Lola, going flat-out in both cases, I'd feel a hell of a lot safer on the 'ring.

The cars... Okay, two things here... The car's got to crush enough in an accident that we don't have a situation like NASCAR, where all the deceleration in an impact is absorbed by the driver's body, which unlike a car, can't be replaced. BUT... The monocoque has got to be strong enough to hold together in even the worst crash. This principle failed in Alex's crash last year... But I don't know if any open-wheel car could possibly have held together with that angle and magnitude of impact. It's a balance, and we'll probably never get it perfect, though the carbon fiber monocoques in most of today's professional open-wheel series are pretty darn close.

As far as controllability... Well, CART's as good as anyone here, better than F1. Big slicks give the drivers every chance to try and keep the car off the wall. Mechanical grip=Fewer accidents, especially high-speed ones.

Finally, the driver's environment. They've got to be strapped in tight, have nothing protruding which could hurt them... We've still got some way to go with this... It's still possible for drivers to get their legs ventilated on impact by suspension pushrods, or smacked in the head with a loose tire. The HANS device is trying to address neck injuries, and area that was overlooked for a long time, and that's a positive thing... But neck injuries until recently weren't the predominate killer of race drivers. And I think CART does need to look at the Moore and Rodriguez crashes, and see if there's any way to add further reinforcement to the roll hoops, which Moore's crash proved can collapse under extreme conditions.

[Liz]

To be perfectly plain about it, Gonzo died of a basal skull fracture, when 100% of the blood left his body, which happened before the car was all the way over the wall. The HANS device might well have saved him from death, if not from serious injury.

I agree that concentrating on one safety device will not solve the problem of why people get killed in racing cars. In fact it's much like improving the gear in hockey, it makes the drivers cocky and then they get dangerous. Fernandez' accident proved that more can be done in strengthening the tub and seat so that other cars can't drive them into the bodies of the drivers. Wasn't it Carpentier that was hit in the head three times by a tire (Gugelman's tire I think) and emerged only with a headache, although his head was driven down nearly to his knees?

I know nothing about the engineering of cars, but it seems to me that whatever they do to strengthen rally cars make them capable of being shot into space without serious damage to the drivers. Could any of this technology be used in open wheel cars?

[Lee Janotta]

Ah, thanks for elightening me about the specifics of Gonzalo's injuries, Liz. Indeed, the HANS could have made a difference in that case.

Yeah, rally cars seem to be nearly indestructable these days... I'm not an engineer by trade, but I do have a servicible background in the subject... It seems to be a great combination of the crushability of a production car, combined with the nearly impenetrable cockpit created by a well-engineered roll cage. The best of both worlds, it would seem. I don't think either can really be applied to open-wheel cars... The closest you could get would be a GTP-style car.

Fenders and a roof give you a _lot_ more room in which to protect the driver from outside forces/intrusions...

They're certainly not invulnerable, though. We've seen some co-drivers get beaten up really bad in the last few seasons (the FIA _must_ take action to raise their seats back up off the floor!!!), and we lost Bob Akin this year in a GTP car.

Of course, if we had racing in which where drivers couldn't hurt themselves if they tried... We'd have the last 4 seasons of Formula 1... How exciting has that been?

[Flatspot]

The Rodriguez crash was the most dark day at the racetrack that I have ever experienced. Unfortunately my best race companion and I were way to close to the accident and saw way too much. We had jumped the gate at the bottom of the corkscrew and made our way up the hill, standing just behind the wall he hit. The car literally seemed to cross over our heads although I'm sure it was 20'-30' away. Again, unfortunately my freind caught it all point blank on home video.

Without going into the gory detail Gonzalo was killed on impact. In that particular situation the HANS device would have done nothing to help him. The deceleration was so great that the car hit a concrete wall head on and cleared some track signage that was approximately 15' tall without touching it and landed upside down coming through the trees in the length of about 25'. He hit the wall at around 170 mph as his foot stuck between the tub and the accelerator and he never hit the brakes according to te telemetry. I believe I read a post accident report where the telemetry showed deceleration in excess of 70 g's. It was awful. It is the only time I've seen safety personel in tears over what they saw. I kept a skid plate from the bottom of the transmission of the car for about a week and finally had to trash it because I couldn't look at it any more. The upside is Gonzalo never felt a thing.

I relate this story only because I beleive in what Lee just stated above. In my opinion you can't blame the track (although the Rodriguez family has litigation pending against CART as well as Greg Moore's family) you can only learn from experience, try to cover everything and hope for the best. With present technology if you drive cars approaching and over 200 miles per hour eventually something bad is going to happen. Superspeedways only compound these issues.

I'm not saying get rid of the big ovals but just that there is always room for improvement in tracks, cars, personal equipment etc. The fact is racing is dangerous. Big rewards mean big risks. I hope like Lee, that all of the sanctioning bodies continually analyze ways to improve and implement what they have learned.

R.I.P Gonzalo

[DavidStHubbins]

I'd prefer not to remember all that stuff above (no offence guys) but instead by watching him win by miles at Spa in F3000! He was opposite -locking it thru Eau Rouge time after time and absolutely destroyed Jason Watt(I think) and Juan Pablo Montoya. JPM said that on days like that Gonzo was unstoppable and you have to be pretty awesome to beat JPM at Spa!

[Flatspot]

You're absolutly right David. Sorry for the depressing story. Yours is the correct way to remember. Thanks!

[Liz]

Yes, it is better to remember how happy he was and what a good racer -- and there is really nothing that could have been done in his case, although in Moore's case there was and I believe some of it has been done. Personally I think the faster we abandon Fontana the happier I will be. But that is just my personal belief that oval racing is not for open wheel cars going that fast.

Gonzo was new to CART so if anyone has any stories about him racing in lower formulas, I'd love to hear them.

[Team Astromega]

It's good to read that Gonzalo is not forgotten over these three years. He was a fast driver, a great guy. I saw him go flat trough Eau Rouge, well that was him, giving his best at each circuit, at each corner, in qualif or race. That's the way i like to remember him. We will never forget '' Gonchi ''

[jondownunder]

I saw Gonzalo's first win at Spa '98 live on TV, and it was truly moving to see how happy he was, both arms out of the car and seat-belts undone if memory serves me right. He was a true talent who seemed to make it without the hype of certain other drivers.

[Ben 93 325is]

Flatspot - it definitely was a stuck throttle...but he was also definitely on the brakes. In the video you can see the front tires lock up and smoking. Not that would help much with a wide open throttle!

[macdaddy]

Although I never spoke to him, I saw Gonzalo at the Detroit GP just a couple of weeks before his accident. I have a picture of him signing an autograph, and the smile on his face told the whole story.

[Jordi]

by the way, Gonzalo scored a point on his first CART race, if I'm right.
Yes, Gonzalo hit the brakes, as the video shows him locking up the front right wheel.
And even though the FIA has done much in track safety, Laguna seemed unaffected, as the Gonzalo's crash and Carpentier's flight in 2000 demonstrated.

[Ben 93 325is]

Very true...they really need to update that track if they want CART to remain there. There have been grumblings of unhappiness with the circuit for some time now.

[Flatspot]

I'd disagree that Laguna seems unaffected. The top of the Corkscrew was completely redesigned. The walls were moved back, 5 rows of tires put in all along the new wall, the signage was removed and the run-off area lenghthened substantially. Carpentier's "flight" was kind of freaky but they moved the stands back a little and added some additional tires. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done and Mazda is throwing a bunch of $$$$ at the track over the next few years. Hopefully, this will make it better in all respects.

[R]

My most fond memory of him is his win in the F3000 race in Monaco in 99, and the joy he displayed afterwards. Unfortunately, I didn't see his Spa win, that would have been great to watch.

Sadly, we will never know what he could have achieved, but he certainly had great potential. Flatspot, I'm sorry you had to witness his death from so close by. Just a point in relation to what's been discussed above though - weren't the conclusions of investigations into his death that the HANS device would have saved him?

But I agree we should remember the good things. His smile - that's what I remember the most. He had a wonderful smile.