RACE TRUCKIE: Sadness at Suzuka

I woke up early on Sunday morning to go to the track and when I opened the curtains in my hotel room, I saw a hot air balloon moving very slow and low over the Suzuka suburbs. It did seem to be very close to the houses and electric power lines and looked quite dangerous to me. Danger has been all around us this weekend. On the Saturday evening at the race track, an unfortunate accident occurred when a man fell off the balcony above the garages. The Suzuka ambulance staff were there almost immediately but due to the severity of his injuries, he did not survive.

Police forensic team on the saturday evening.

Sunday morning, in the opening Super Taikyu race, a local driver also died after skidding on some oil and his car lost control and impacted the guard rail very heavily. The Air Ambulance arrived but despite every bodies best efforts, yet another tragedy occurred.

The rest of the racing resumed later on Sunday but the atmosphere around the paddock was a strange one due to these two events. As a mark of respect by the winning drivers of all the races on Sunday, there was no champagne celebrations.

Air Ambulance arrives on sunday.

On the Sunday evening, the teams were busy again with loading the containers and getting things ready for the next race in Shanghai, China.
Behind the garages was a very busy and limited space for the teams to load up. The forklifts were all neatly parked up and when the Suzuka circuit officials said it was okay to commence work, the activity was frantic but extremely well coordinated by the Truckies in charge of this.

The circuit had released a bulletin, asking us to keep the container area clean and tidy for the spectators who were walking around. But I have included some pictures of the Super Taikyu paddock which did not seem to have the same set of rules as the WTCC paddock.
VERY STRANGE.

I will leave you with a few pictures of the rest of this weekends events.