CCTV reveals dramatic car crash

DRAMATIC in-car CCTV footage from the famous Le Mans 24 Hours race, which has just been released, demonstrates vividly the moment when a Warrington businessman’s car left the track and took flight at 270 kph.
It was the end of the race for Mike Newton, chief executive officer of Warrington-based AD Group.
Mike, who already has two class wins at Le Mans to his name, had been driving the powerful RML MG Lola EX264 race car for nearly an hour – after taking over from his co-driver Brazilian Tommy Erdos – when, eight hours into the gruelling 24 hour race, disaster struck as he came into the famous Porsche Curves.
His approach to the sweeping curve was nothing unusual, but the result was. The car snapped suddenly to the right, side-on to the direction of travel, and as the air pressure built up under the edge, the car lifted clear of the ground.
Mike said later: “I can recall looking across, and seeing the ground coming in towards me.”
Almost at the point when the car was upside down, the front corner dug in, spinning the car violently back the other way, until the left rear hit the ground in turn. The car bucked again before finally settling back on its wheels. Miraculously, Mike was able to drive the car slowly back to the pit lane and into the garage.
Thanks to AD Group’s CCTV recording technology, installed in the car, Mike was able to show Phil Barker, RML team manager, exactly what the car – and driver – had just experienced with the recorded images linked to all-important telemetry data.
This assisted Barker in directing the team to focus the repair work on the areas of impact and subsequent damage as the RML pit crew stripped down the MG and then put it all back together again.Mike now has a two month break from motorsport to recuperate before taking part in the 4th round of the Le Mans Series at Nurburgring in Germany.
Picture shows (left) a sequence of in-car images showing the crash alongside (right) a shot of post-crash repair work in the garage area.’