“I’M very lucky, I’ve certainly been given a second chance at life I think.”
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Those were the words of Bathurst driver Brad Schumacher after he was remarkably able to walk away from a horrific high-speed crash at Mount Panorama on Friday afternoon.
Having earlier clocked a GT4 class track record during the Challenge Bathurst Supersprint, Schumacher was pushing hard on another lap behind the wheel of his Lotus V6 Cup Car R.
He hit 243 kilometres per hour as he raced up Mountain Straight but then a mechanical failure – as yet to be diagnosed – sent him spearing off the track and into the wall at turn two.
“I’ve hit the wall on the right and from there the car has actually gone airborne and done a complete flip through the air across the entire circuit. It’s actually hit the wall at the outside of the turn airborne, that’s where it has come to a rest,” Schumacher said.
“I can imagine it must have looked horrendous and that explains why, when I actually got myself out of the car on my own two feet and I looked over at the marshals, who were all standing at the marshal point, I gave them the thumbs up and they honestly looked like they were deer in headlights. They were just literally gobsmacked looking at me.
“I’m very lucky, I’ve certainly been given a second chance at life I think.”
Schumacher had no time to react once something went wrong and while the impact caused a huge amount of damage to the car, the injuries he sustained were surprisingly minor.
He tore a ligament in his knee and sustained deep tissue bruising to his legs, chest and pelvis.
After emerging from the car and picking up pieces of debris – saying “I wanted to get the pieces I knew were expensive” – Schumacher was put in a neck brace by the medical staff who rushed to his assistance.
The Bathurst driver said they were in disbelief that he was able to walk away from the crash after seeing the state of his Lotus.
“Amazingly no broken bones, I was conscious, I was able to radio the team and let them know I’d had a big incident,” he said.
“I shoved the door open and got myself out of the car and there was stuff everywhere.
“The Lotus are built to an international standard, the cellular cage in them is safe – obviously. You can see from what’s left of the car that the crash has basically taken the impact all the way through to the foot well. The front carbon crash box, it’s the same technology they put in Formula 1 cars, it would have taken a majority of the impact into the wall.
“The technician has got the data out of the car now and my body would have taken on the force of 44Gs on impact.
“That’s 44 times your body weight, so for me that's around 3,600 kilos. I stayed conscious, so I guess I can now become an astronaut if I need to.”
While Schumacher is able to joke – albeit with a nervous laugh – about the crash, he knows that he is lucky not to have more seriously injured himself.
Never before has he been involved in a crash and he hopes it is something he will not have to endure again.
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“That's my first crash in racing ever. I haven’t had any other incidents other than racing rubbing and some stuff with other vehicles - that’s the first and I’ve certainly made up for not having crashed before,” he said.
“I think that crash has certainly got to be up there with the biggest crashes there have ever been at Bathurst.
“Once I saw the damage to the wall, that was something that really hit home with me. The wall is actually broken, the Lotus is just under 1,000 kilos and it's broken the wall ... the marks will be there for some time.
“I guess it’s just something that's happened and you’ve got to be thankful to walk away from an incident like that.
“At the time I obviously didn’t have any time to think about what was happening, it happened so quick. But once I was sitting in the car afterwards, it’s amazing what you start to think about, what runs through your mind when your life starts to flash in front of you.
“It's definitely something I'll never forget - no-one would forget being in an incident that big.”
As for the Lotus, Schumacher said he and his team are unsure exactly what went wrong. Prior to the incident it had run well – as evidenced by the 2:12.6450 class lap record.
An autopsy is currently being carried out to determine the cause of the incident.
“The car never reacted like that at any other time in any other session. What’s happened is the car has now been sent back to Sydney so they can do an autopsy on the car to see what went wrong with it,” Schumacher said.
“We were thinking it could have been a failure in the brakes potentially to lock the rear and make the car react so violently, but all of the brake pressures remained normal, so that was fine. The ABS engaged and worked correctly, we looked at the wheel speed sensors and the speed of the wheels were all the same expect for the rear left, which decelerated quicker than the others.
“So we don’t know if we had a tyre failure rear left or potentially another mechanical component to unsettle the car so radically.”
In any case, the incident at Challenge Bathurst means Schumacher’s debut in the Bathurst 12 Hour will have to wait. He had specifically purchased the Lotus with contesting that internationally renowned enduro in mind.
He is also unsure just how much of the damaged Lotus can be salvaged.
However, Schumacher is not ruling out a tilt in the 2019 Australian GT Championship, which commences on March 14 at Albert Park.
“Lotus in England have already contacted us and are speaking with us in relation to importing another new chassis,” he said.
“Our team mechanic is going through the vehicle and getting everything off it that he can of substantial value. Once we get everything off the car that we know is okay to reuse - which by the looks of it isn’t much - we’ll weigh up the cost of the rebuild compared to purchasing a completely new vehicle.
“If the engine and the gear box are salvageable they’re big ticket items there, but naturally the chassis and the cell cage are completely ruined ... the steering wheel is okay but the steering rack isn’t.
“There’s a little bit involved until we make a decision.
“That particular car was full of potential, obviously breaking the lap record for a GT4 car and by some amount, it was really, really looking good. But anyhow, that’s racing.”
Before any potential GT races, Schumacher is still planning to tackle the Bathurst 6 Hour alongside good friend Michael Anderson in a Subaru WRX Sti.
“As you say you need to get back on the horse and keep going with it. The longer you leave it the harder it’s going to be,” he said.
“I won’t have another opportunity to race at Mount Panorama until the 6 Hour, which is in April. It probably will be a little nerve-wracking to head up towards that corner in particular.
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“The 6 Hour car is nowhere near as fast as that 12 Hour car is, there’s a huge difference in speed. But by the same token, the 6 Hour is a Production Car and not really built for racing whereas the 12 Hour car is and in my opinion, it’s also slightly more difficult to drive.
“Crashing, that’s a part of racing and if you’re not prepared to endure something like that in racing then you probably shouldn’t be doing it. It’s something every driver ultimately prepares themselves for and no driver who races competitively like we are doesn’t have that thought cross their mind at some stage.
“You try not to think about crashing because that puts you off doing good times.”
And it is good times that means Schumacher will still have fond memories of the 2018 Challenge Bathurst event.
“There has been a huge high from the weekend and that is that I’m now the official lap record holder for a GT4 car in Bathurst,” he said.