VIDEO: Ford Fiesta crashes at Pikes Peak
The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb is not for the faint of heart. The 12.42 mile, 156 turn course has multiple surfaces, a (nearly) 5,000 foot elevation increase, not to mention dozens of unprotected cliffs that await a driver's slip-up.
We reported earlier that the #5 Ford Fiesta succumbed to the mountain during a practice session on Thursday, with Ford later informing us that the crash had been caused by a misfire and that the damage was repairable.
Thanks to the wonders of YouTube, we now have amateur footage of Andrea Eriksson sliding the Fiesta off course. An alert cameraman caught the mishap on tape, and was kind enough to post it online and share it with us all. Most of the video is post-crash, but if you skip ahead to the end of part two, you can actually watch Eriksson and his co-driver drive away in the car after it gets towed back onto the road. Hit the jump to watch both videos.
Gallery: Ford Fiesta Rally Car at Pikes Peak
[Source: YouTube]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Matt 1:02PM (7/22/2009)
Bold Moves.
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Avinash machado 1:26PM (7/22/2009)
Don't you have homework to do Matt? Does your mom know you are surfing the web instead of doing your homework?
Matt 1:28PM (7/22/2009)
LOL!
Oh how original.
Yaroukh 1:31PM (7/22/2009)
Is thing one positive about you For SHO: "Matt" is shorter than "dumbass".
Avinash machado 1:45PM (7/22/2009)
Why the hate for Ford Matt?
JP 1:53PM (7/22/2009)
Ford is doing MUCH more than GM and Chrysler, Matt. They are making good cars with good technology, acknowledging their mistakes and making some good decisions to get them back on track.
I'm far from a Ford fanboy, and even I can see they're working to better themselves.
Matt (that likes ford) 1:57PM (7/22/2009)
Oh really Matt, those "bold moves" that you speak of can't be said the same for your fanboy GM company since they don't even compete in Pikes Peak. They are too worried about going bankrupt since they decided to blow all their money into Transformers instead of creating reliable vehicles that could actually compete. I don't see an Aveo in this race.
Chris 8:26PM (7/23/2009)
I'm so glad Ford is doing so well empirically by any measure.
Joe 1:04PM (7/22/2009)
Awesome crash, and very happy they were able to walk away. Hearing that thing start back up was just amazing, though!
Go FORD!
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Torrent 1:04PM (7/22/2009)
I was gonna laugh, but that would be mean.
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Joe 1:05PM (7/22/2009)
What's that supposed to mean, troll?
Go back to your mom's basement.
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Joe 1:06PM (7/22/2009)
That was directed @Matt.
ZeitgeistXIII 1:08PM (7/22/2009)
OH MY GOSH! hehe Glad nobody was hurt so I can say that and not feel guilty for making fun of the camera guy.
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Jesse Stewart 11:58PM (7/23/2009)
Yeah, I was the camera guy. It wasn't really a big wreck or anything, I just kept saying "Oh my gosh" because, seriously, what are the odds? There are 156 corners on the track and an unlimited wrecked on ours? I was in shock.
To the people hating Fords: There were tons of them in the race and they all did fine (except this one of course)
To the people hating GM: There were plenty of them competing too.
To Bungle: You obviously have no idea what you're talking about. First off, the ditch looks much more shallow on camera. Second, this is near the start, I take it you have no idea how far the fall is off the cliffs at the top. Thousands of feet, I assure you.
To akboss302: The video doesn't show how deep the ditch is and how steep it is as well. The car isn't exactly a bag of feathers anyway.
To nastinupe: And what were we supposed to do? Everyone was ordered away from the car, so how could we have helped? And no, posting it on YouTube isn't a shame, sliding a perfectly capable car into a ditch is.
To Arkz: Help him? Were you not aware that the car was incapable of moving out of the ditch and the driver and co-driver walked out under their own power. I don't really understand what you wanted us spectators to do...
To Dustin and John: Thank you, you two are being as respectful and nice as the driver and co-driver were.
To HotRodzNKustoms: Yeah, they said they had no idea how far the drop was and were relieved it was one of the shallowest on the course.
To jaydubz: I was AMAZED that they were willing to sign autographs. That was the last thing I figured either of them wanted to do.
Guys, if you don't believe that I was really the camera man:
-This corner is Engineers Corner
-The channel this came from was mine, Punk Fiction Productions
-My name is Jesse Stewart my brothers name is Ryan and my parents names are James and Maureen (look for all of us on the credits of the Part 5 Recap video)
-My e-mail is jstew64@yahoo.com, same as my name, same as my YouTube account.
I feel honored that autoblog.com chose my video, even though I'm the only one from the corner that posted one. I don't really see how anyone could be posting negative comments about the video. I don't take offense to the "Oh my gosh!" stuff, because that's what I felt as soon as it happened, but some of you don't understand what you're talking about. I gave you guys a video to show what happened and then you go and insult American rallying when you weren't there. The safety officials had everything under control. They told Eriksson and his co-driver to get away from the car, same with all of us. That's why we got autographs. They were stuck up there until the car could be towed away. Please reply to this post if you have any questions, I was there, I would know.
Example: He told us that when the car turned, the tires came off of rim and under the car so much that the rim hit the asphalt and caused it to slide. I would know that because I'm the camera man and I was there. Do I need to prove anything else?
ZeitgeistXIII 10:58AM (7/24/2009)
@ Jesse,
The video was cute, its great to see enthusiasum from someone who appears to be new to the sport. It was a mild crash and the chances of seeing a crash at a motorsport event are actually pretty good. After a few years of going you realize it happens alot at grassroot events and rally racing in particular due to the fact that many of the entries are still working their way up the learning curve. You also realize that most of the crashes are lowspeed(corners) and due to the safety preparation many walk away with bruised egos more and banged up cars or bikes. A typical motorcycle club racing event in a weekend its not uncommon to have 10 to 15 crashes over the course of three days. Most of the time we get up pickup the bike and curse in our helmets then slink back in to the paddock to safety wire and zip tie the fairings back for the next practice or race.
Have fun and remember to not get to wound up over blog comments. Every swinging johnson with a keyboard quite often has an opinion and usually they are different from your own. Heck maybe go buy an old 240sx and go racing yourself and find out what really goes on when things go pear shaped. :)
mikemaj82 1:09PM (7/22/2009)
omg this is terrible...yea. I've seen cars on the highway down in bigger ditches.
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Bungle 2:16PM (7/22/2009)
Ha, no kidding. Apparently we Americans need to grow some bigger balls when it comes to rally races. That was probably the tamest rally crash I've ever seen (or of any kind, for that matter), and you'd think the videographer just witnessed a decapitation or something.
akboss302 1:22PM (7/22/2009)
What happened to the good ol' days when the crowd swarmed crashed rally cars, picked them up, and move them back onto the road...
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nastinupe 1:58PM (7/22/2009)
Too busy pulling out their iphones to take pictures and text people so they can post on the accident on youtube. What a shame.
Arkz 2:25PM (7/22/2009)
I was just thinking that. When I saw the people running (sort of), I thought they were going to help them, but nooooo, they need a better angle for their cameras. I'm sorry to see, that all of the passion is gone from rallying and it's fans. Nowadays people probably only go to see the crashes, just like what happened to nascar a while back (well, okay, people have always watched nascar just for the crashes).