Motorsport OMG / WTF moments - Racing Funnies, Fails, Crashes, And Randomness

[-Fred-]

I've been binge watching that channel for a few weeks now, there's a metric crap ton of vintage rally videos on there.

 

[John Wells]

Malcolm Wilson has Msport, at Cockermouth, not far were I live, with rally & GT Cars.

 

[die996]

Everyone probably knows how dominant Jeremy McGrath was on supercross, getting 7 titles in his first 8 years on the main class. He only lost the 1997 title when he switched to Suzuki literally 2 weeks before the season started. What many do not know is that, in 1998, on his first year in Yamaha-Chaparral, MC almost lost the title to 250cc rookie Kevin Windham.
Before this race, McGrath led 268-238 over Windham in points (AMA Supercross used the classic top20 system with 25-22-20-18-16-15-14...) but, during most of this race, K-Dub was en route to cut that difference by over 10 points and there would be 2 more races after that. Sadly enough, the young gun from Missouri came up short and hurt himself and the King of Supercross won the 6th of his 7 top-class titles.



Quite crazy to think that such a big thing ALMOST happened. This would've probably changed the career of both McGrath and Windham in a huge way. MC needed that 1998 title to show that his 5 titles before were not Honda's merit and K-Dub never won a main class title.

 

[Liquid]

Alternative Timeline: 1995 McLaren-Ford with Rubens Barrichello

Barrichello potentially in a McLaren going into 1998... my heart just can't take this right now.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Alternative Timeline: 1995 McLaren-Ford with Rubens Barrichello

Barrichello potentially in a McLaren going into 1998... my heart just can't take this right now.

And they took the "Danish driver" instead. How different history might have been!

 

[Liquid]

 

[ProjectWHaT]

 

[Populuxe]

 

[Dylan]

 

[Kingofweasles]

Alternative Timeline: 1995 McLaren-Ford with Rubens Barrichello

Barrichello potentially in a McLaren going into 1998... my heart just can't take this right now.

I'm pretty sure the first time McLaren were thinking about signing Rubens Barrichello was due to pressure from Marlboro of South America wanting a marketable driver, much like Marlboro USA wanted Michael Andretti in 1993 when Ron Dennis wanted Mika Hakkinen to be Aston Senna's team mate from the start. (As a case-in-point, after this McLaren went after Christian Fittipaldi for a deal to race for them in 1995, but then Marlboro's head of racing sponsorship vetoed that because they wanted Nigel Mansell and we all know how that played out...)

I think the second time McLaren were interested in getting Rubens to drive for them is the bigger story, because I had heard that they were deeply dissatisfied with David Coulthard trying to be an equal Number One driver when his contract clearly had him pegged as the Number Two, but I had not heard or thought much about who they could have replaced him with until now.

 

[Liquid]

I do find it amusing that, instead of signing Barrichello as their second driver, McLaren signed "the Danish driver" as their protege instead and Barrichello wiped the floor with Magnussen the year and a half they were teammates at Stewart, outqualifying him 22-2 and by far being more competitive.

If paddock hearsay is to be believed, it's amazing that Coulthard lasted nine seasons at McLaren when Ron Dennis wanted him gone so soon into his contract.

 

[DriveSpark]

Terry Harryman has an ecclesiastical moment on the '83 Manx rally, thanks to a certain Mr Vatanen (about 1:30 in, but watch from the start).



Imagine having to take your hand off the wheel to change gear in a rally car nowadays! Its a great bit of film.

You guys may have seen it before, but this podcast its always worth a listen for good racing stories. https://www.dinnerwithracers.com/episode-guide/
Andy Lally explaining cheating in NASCAR is amusing, Bobby Unser on.. well pretty much everything and many more.

 

[PaMu1337]

Spa 24 this year was moved due to Covid. They moved it to the end of October, and didn't realise that's when summer time ends. It's now a 25hr race.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Spa 24 this year was moved due to Covid. They moved it to the end of October, and didn't realise that's when summer time ends. It's now a 25hr race.

Given that the likelihood of service-based failures increases exponentially along a part's predicted life we're sure to see some aggrieved competitors dropping out in the final hour. Strange times, literally.

 

[Populuxe]

Yeah, I'm not sure how I feel about adding an extra hour to a race just so the organizers can act all cute about it happening over the end of summer when an extra hour is added to the clock. The could easily just end it at 24 hours. A lot of those teams are operating on very thin budgets, and that extra hour means extra fuel, wear, tires, etc, and it also mean an extra hour of people's lives in danger. Not just drivers, but pit crews, course workers, even the audience if something catastrophic happens.

I get the counter-argument, too. It's racing. It's a dangerous sport and everyone involved is aware of that. And other people have hosted 25 hour races. I just hope they thought everything through before deciding this. Maybe even talked to the teams first.

 

[Roo]

Spoiler: NASCAR Talladega finish spoiler

The finish itself with a 0.007 gap is one thing, but Aric Almarola in the slowmo at 2:47 made me chuckle:

 

[Barra333]

Is it legal for him to zing all over the track like that to block people?

 

[Dylan]

Is it legal for him to zing all over the track like that to block people?

In NASCAR, there is no rule against blocking.

 

[Liquid]

 

[Yellowbeard]

People 'driving' pretend racing cars on a tv screen ? ... It'll never catch on

 

[EngieDiesel]

People 'driving' pretend racing cars on a tv screen ? ... It'll never catch on

Yeah, imagine a race car driver wasting their time playing video games... next you'll be telling me they'll even be paid by their sponsors to do it too! Or that they'll show it on TV like it was a REAL sport! Hah, as if!

Now quit wasting time and go do your homework.

 

[UnkaD]

Can't wait for decades down the line to see all the 2020 images in the classic motorsport photos thread. The digital year. Well, half a year I guess.

 

[Roo]

I can't work out how to embed it in a post, but this GIF of Sam Lowes in 2016, Malaysia FP1, Moto2, is well worth watching to the end.

Edit: Scroll down for the GIF itself, or better still, watch the Youtube version Populuxe Cowboy posted below.

 

[Barra333]

Wtf! Ads before gifs now?

 

[Populuxe]

Wtf! Ads before gifs now?

It's worth waiting for, though.

 

[Liquid]

I can't even get it to load.

 

[Barra333]

I can't even get it to load.

Did you scroll down a bit? The page had an ad bigger than the gif itself at the top so I had to scroll for the content.

 

[Populuxe]

Here it is on YouTube, but sped up to double time for some reason.
EDIT: before playing, click on the settings symbol and set the playback speed to 0.5, then it will play at the correct speed.

 

[Roo]

Here it is on YouTube, but sped up to double time for some reason.
EDIT: before playing, click on the settings symbol and set the playback speed to 0.5, then it will play at the correct speed.

Thanks! I looked for it on YouTube but could only find clips of video games.

 

[daan]

The question that's never asked but you've always wanted to know. How many people can you fit in (on) an F1 car?

Well, Mexico 1986 has the answer. Phillippe Alliot was giving Stefan Johansson and Rene Arnoux a lift back to the pits when he ran out of fuel. Johansson flagged down Nelson Piquet and all 3 hopped on board the Williams, so the answer is 4.