Robby's bad accident in CART in 1995

While mourning the loss of Dan Wheldon, I began thinking about Robby's open wheel career.

I really became a fan of RG in 1995 when I attended the Phoenix CART race. He won that race and I was impressed with his skills. He went a lap down early but fought back for the win. That year Robby was at the top of his game. He went on to win again in Detroit and was in contention to win the CART championship. Then he had a terrible accident during Friday's practice at Michigan. Robby hit the wall at high speed and was knocked out and spent the night in the hospital. Although typical Robby, he wanted and tried to run the race on Sunday, but CART refused (Think back to his black eye hummer accident then running that week). Missing that race essentially ended Robby's chances of a title. He ended the season 5th in points with 2 wins and 2 poles.

Robby has stated in the last few years that Indy is a young man’s series. He speaks from a perspective few have. I wish he would have won that championship in 1995, but I am very greatful he survived that July 28th morning to race another day.

Life is short and precious.

This is a shot of Robby's #5 Walker Racing Reynard 95I Ford after it hit the wall at MIS:

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Permalink Reply by Pathfinder7 on October 19, 2011 at 10:33pm

It has also been reported that he was mad as hell when CART wouldn't let him race.

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Permalink Reply by 7gason7 on October 19, 2011 at 10:57pm

Yup that's RG. Same thing in his first "camel grass" Dakar, the Dakar that was cancelled, the 2011 dakar, Robby is always mad as hell when someone says he can't race.

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Permalink Reply by Wally Meier on October 20, 2011 at 1:05am

I like the scene in "Dust to Glory" where you hear Robbys chase crew saying they didn't have a spare tire for him and that they Had one crazy mad driver! Then Dana Brown comes on and informs us that Robby ran 30 miles on the flat before getting a replacement and had moved into first place in the process!

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Permalink Reply by Pathfinder7 on October 20, 2011 at 7:35am

One other little tidbit from that Michigan weekend was that his car was so badly wrecked that it was brought back to the garage undercover.

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Permalink Reply by 7gason7 on October 20, 2011 at 11:27am

One more thought about that 1995 MIS race, Parker Johnstone sat on the pole with a speed of 230.458 MPH . Tony Kanaan won the pole for the LV race. His speed was 222.078MPH. So despite what everyone wants to claim, they have slowed open wheel Indy cars down over the last 15 years and added a ton of safety enhancements.

If Vitor Meira makes it through like Dixon and Franchitti did (who were right with him) the accident, although spectacular would have been far less tragic.

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Permalink Reply by Ben Cartwright on October 20, 2011 at 1:38pm

Robby's car broke in half in that wreck, he's very lucky to have escape serious injury. in Dr. Steve Olvey's book "Rapid Response" (a very interesting book evey race fan should buy it) he said Robby was knocked out for two or three minutes. However he seemed fine after that and could race but the rules wouldn't allow that.

Damn, Robby had such a great shot at the championship that year.

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Permalink Reply by 7gason7 on October 20, 2011 at 2:51pm

For those that are interested in "Rapid Response" it is being re isseued on 11/12. You can preorder a copy at Amazon. It's been out of print for awhile and not available for less then $40 used.

http://amzn.com/0857331124

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Permalink Reply by 7gason7 on October 20, 2011 at 3:08pm

Not 1995 but to get an idea how far open wheel cars have come. Look at Robby's lap Michigan in 1994. See how much of him sticks out of the cockpit. Wow 230 MPH.

The youtube channel for this clip is:

http://www.youtube.com/user/champcar4ever

Lots of cool clips.