Some good news for a change;


Former Formula One ace Martin Donnelly, who was lucky not to be
paralysed in a career-ending 140mph smash at Jerez in 1990, is returning
to the track next month and aiming for victory in the Silverstone
Britcar 24 Hour Endurance Race.


Rest of article can be found at:-
<http://www.crash.net/news_view~t~Bri...-return-to-top
-of-podium-~cid~26~id~135717.htm>

--
Emma - The Chocolate Monster
http://chocmonster.rules.it - Updated!
"Someone told me that if you don't grow up by the age of 50
you never have to - I'm right on target!" - Stefan Johansson

"Emma" <Emma (AT) excalvehs (DOT) demon.co.uk> wrote

Emma <Emma (AT) excalvehs (DOT) demon.co.uk> wrote:
Good news. As well as his team management, Martin's driven a few
things in the past since his accident but turning out as a driver
in a 24 hour endurance race implies that his overall health and
fitness must be pretty good!

pete
--
pete (AT) fenelon (DOT) com "I once coaxed a dog into a library" - Tommy Saxondale

"Emma" <Emma (AT) excalvehs (DOT) demon.co.uk> wrote

What happened to him at Jerez? Was it a tire going down through the fastest
corner?

KT

Can't remember exactly how it happened but he lost it in the biggest
possible way on the second to last corner behind the pits. Hit the barriers
at 140mph and completely destroyed his car and the barrier. He was thrown
from the car still attached to his seat and ended up in the middle of the
track all mangled.

For me, the most visibly shocking accident since Gilles.

Good to see him racing again though.

"Kilgore Trout" <trout (AT) midland (DOT) com> wrote

Kilgore Trout <trout (AT) midland (DOT) com> wrote:
It was suspension failure.

http://www.grandprix.com/ft/ft00049.html
http://www.grandprix.com/gpe/rr498.html

--
Emma - The Chocolate Monster
http://chocmonster.rules.it - Updated!
"Someone told me that if you don't grow up by the age of 50
you never have to - I'm right on target!" - Stefan Johansson

This is from an interview with Derek Warwick which appeared on
Autosport.com before the GPMasters Silverstone race:-


One of Warwick's best decisions, and one which perhaps he should be most
admired and respected for considering the uncertainty he faced at the
time, was choosing to race on after his teammate Martin Donnelly
suffered a horrific accident in practice for the 1990 Spanish Grand
Prix.

Hot on the heels of his own spectacular accident in the previous race at
Monza, Warwick had to watch from the pitlane when his teammate had an
even worse shunt in Friday practice. Not knowing the exact cause of the
accident at the time, the mechanics and Warwick decided not to race.

"When I got to the circuit on Saturday, there were masses of media
following me, and it looked like Martin Donnelly was going to die. It
looked like Lotus were going to implode.

"I remember I got to the track and saw the mechanics put a reinforcement
in the monocoque where it kept on breaking, and they convinced me 100
per cent that the car was safe.

"I ended up racing because I thought it was the right thing to do to
save Lotus. And I went out there and the corner where Martin was
'killed' on my second lap I was flat through there. And I think that
takes a lot of bravery, courage and commitment.

"I had to do it, because if I thought there had been a lot of easing off
there, I would have had too many doubts. I qualified the car in the top
ten."

Warwick retired from the race with gearbox trouble, and Lotus survived
for four more seasons. Donnelly recovered, although he never raced a
Formula One car again. But without a Grand Prix win, perhaps the 1990
Spanish Grand Prix should be what Warwick is remembered for.

--
Emma - The Chocolate Monster
http://chocmonster.rules.it - Updated!
"Someone told me that if you don't grow up by the age of 50
you never have to - I'm right on target!" - Stefan Johansson

"Emma" <Emma (AT) excalvehs (DOT) demon.co.uk> wrote

Thx. Very brave of Warwick to continue on.

KT

On Tue, 22 Aug 2006 09:10:59 +0100, "nordberg"
<nordberg_73 (AT) nospam (DOT) hotmail.com> wrote:
Yikes. That explains why the chicane was put there, I guess.

- Jones

Emma wrote:
It is indeed. Thanks for that, Emma.

You (and others) might also like this article:

BELFAST, August 23 (Belfast Telegraph) - The husky voice and
distinctive limp remain the legacies of an accident which brought a
potentially glittering Formula One career to an end.
But Martin Donnelly is a walking miracle. He came as close to death
as anyone can and still survive in an horrific crash at the Jerez
circuit in Spain 16 years ago. The pictures of his the seemingly
lifeless, shattered body lying on the track amid the wreckage of his
yellow Lotus-Lamborghini F1 car are still vivid in my memory.
It seemed that no one could survive such a catastrophic crash - but
Martin did and lived to tell the tale.
Well, not quite. He remembers nothing of the accident which
happened during practice for the Spanish Grand Prix in September, 1990,
and little of the day itself. Except that he was suffering from
sunburn. The rest remains a blank.
He eventually woke up in the Royal London Hospital several days
later, having been flown back from Spain by air ambulance, but the next
six months are a blur of pain, operations, sedation and more
operations.
"I remember very little of that weekend, or even the next few
months,"
he says. "I've seen the pictures and I've been told all about it but I
don't remember driving the car that Friday, what happened to make me
crash, or much of what went on in the months afterwards.
"I remember getting quite badly sunburned the day before but little
after that."
Martin was the boy from west Belfast who had graduated to motor
racing's elite and rubbed wheels on the track with the likes of Ayrton
Senna, Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell. But his burgeoning career ended
that day, the injuries to his right leg in particular too severe to
allow him to race again at the highest level.
On Saturday he returns to where it all began for him, the former
airfield circuit at Kirkistown which is the home of Ulster motor
racing.
Poignantly, he will be back for the Autobhan Martin Donnelly Trophy
meeting, a Formula Ford Festival, which commemorates his late father -
also called Martin - who was a stalwart of the Kirkistown circuit and
the 500 Club which owns it.
"I feel honoured that the festival is being run in my name and I'm
especially pleased that the winner will be awarded the Martin Donnelly
Trophy in memory of my father who loved the place," says Martin.
It was there that his father, a driver himself, took Martin as a
kid to watch him racing - until, that is, the day Donnelly junior, aged
16, stepped into the family Formula Ford and lapped the track faster
than his dad.
He was on his way, climbing through the ranks at home - and over
the wall at the boarding school he attended in Newry when his racing
activities kept him out late - and then in the British Formula Three
championship, the European Formula 3000 series and on to F1, first with
Arrows and then Lotus as team mate to Derek Warwick.
He was a contemporary of Eddie Irvine, the two of them racing
against each other in F3 and F3000, but he made the break to F1 long
before his fellow Ulsterman was recruited by the Jordan team and later
moved on to drive for Ferrari and Jaguar.
Sadly, the rivalry wasn't allow to continue into F1 because on a
sunny Friday afternoon in Jerez Donnelly's Lotus hit the barriers at
around 160 mph, shattering on impact and spitting him out like a rag
doll.
It was the work of Professor Sid Watkins, Formula One's chief
medical officer, that saved him on the day and oversaw his recovery
back in London.
And it was Martin's accident, and the subsequent death of Senna,
which prompted Watkins to write his book "Life at the Limit."
In the preface he says: "In Jerez de la Frontera in October, 1994,
I sat on the balcony of my room and felt compelled to write. I had been
thinking of Martin Donnelly, as it was our first return to the circuit
since his accident in 1990, and of Ayrton Senna's extraordinary
response to that tragedy."
Senna, then the greatest driver the world had seen, followed Martin
to hospital in Seville and kept a solitary vigil outside the intensive
care unit for several hours until he was sure Martin would survive.
Prof Watkins later revealed that they had long discussions about
the methods that were used to keep Martin alive on the track that day,
"Senna had stopped at the scene of the accident," writes Watkins,
"and the next morning told me he had watched the resuscitation. He
questioned me about the techniques involved and had noticed the airway
had gone in, apparently wrongly, upside down and then rotated, and
wanted to know the anatomical reasons for this. He was intrigued about
the trick."
It was techniques like this which kept Donnelly alive until the
doctors at Seville's Polytrauma Hospital could take over. The damage to
his throat, and hence the husky voice, was a small price to pay.
Unfortunately, even Prof Watkins' expertise couldn't prevent Senna
dying in a similar accident at Imola four years later.
"There is no doubt The Prof saved my life," says Martin. "I missed
most of what he and his team did because I was unconscious, or so
heavily sedated for months afterwards, but the fact that I am here
today, walking and talking, is proof of his skills."
He wasn't able to save Martin's F1 career but he did save his right
leg which became so problematical - and life-threatening - that other
doctors wanted to amputate it. Prof Watkins resisted and although it
remains unbending, Martin has been able to carry on in motor racing,
running his own teams in junior formulae and now working as driver
development manager for Comtec Racing in World Series by Renault and
Formula Three.
"I don't look back too much or think about what might have been,"
he says. "I was given a second chance at life and that's the most
important thing."
Now 42, he still drives racing cars occasionally - indeed on
Saturday he will climb on board a little Radical sports racer to lap
Kirkistown in the company of former MotoGP star Jeremy McWilliams for
old times sake. Just watch him - he was, and still is, pure class.

David