Michael Park, Martin's co-driver, dies at Rally GB :|

Rally halted after fatal crash

A co-driver has died after a car hit a tree in a stage of the Wales Rally GB in Margam, Port Talbot.

Michael Park, 39, was partnering Estonian Markko Martin when the Peugeot 307 they were in hit a tree. The final stages of the rally were cancelled.

Park, from Newent, Gloucestershire, was in a serious crash with Martin last year in Argentina. Their car was written off and both went to hospital.

He had driven with Martin since 2000. The pair had won five world rallies.

Park - nicknamed "Beef" - had been a familiar face in the world championship since 1994, when he was co-driver for Mark Higgins.

Married with children, Herefordshire-born Park had also worked with former champions Richard Burns and Colin McRae. Sunday's crash happened during the 17-mile Margam stage of the rally. Initial reports said the car heavily into a tree on Park's side.

Organisers confirmed at 1045 BST that Park had suffered fatal injuries. Martin escaped without injury.

The stage was halted immediately and will not be resumed. The second run through the Margam leg, scheduled to be the last stage, was also cancelled.

The competitors returned to the Millennium Stadium for presentations. As a mark of respect for Park, none of the planned celebrations involving champagne and fireworks took place. A one-minute silence was also held.

Norwegian Petter Solberg was named the winner.

Peugeot issued a statement saying the car had left the route shortly after the start of the stage.

"Peugeot Automobiles and Peugeot Sport would like to express their feeling of extreme sadness and deep emotion to the family of Michael Park, known affectionately as 'Beef'," the statement said.

saw that on the news last nite, very sad, it seems that in the big crashes its always the co-driver to get the most injuries or at worst die, hopefully this death will prompt far stricker safety regulations for co-drivers, if the drivers aren't die'ing but the co-drivers are there must be a reason, these guys don't wear HANS devices either....

See the crash these 2 survived not so long ago! The car was fully fuct up!

that's a good point about the HANS devices blade, but would they really have made much difference in this case?

this was a worst case scenario accident, 6th gear speeds, and the impact point was at the weakest point of the cage, and right where the co-driver sits.

HANS device is only really useful in a head on, it stops the head snapping forward which prevents a basalier(sp) skull fracture at the base of the skull = instant death

Probably wouldn't of been that useful in this case but who knows, I think they should add more cage around the co-driver and a HANS device wouldn't hurt, I've been looking into them, around $1200 for something that can save your life, I'll be buying one. For instance the last 2 deaths in Nascar were from basalier skull fractures and is why everyone now in top level circuit racing must wear one, I don't understand why rallying hasn't followed suit. There's even a fair amount of guys in the Mazda Pro7 series I pitcrew in that wear them.

spending half your time sideways makes looking where you are going a different proposition though

ok so couldn't we modify a HANS device to give a bit more lateral movement while still stopping heads snapping forward in an accident?

There's a way around everything

well maybe
or we could just ban rallying, and then no one would get hurt