It was a bad weekend for the folks at Spoon Sports. The same people who brought you the Spoon NSX-R GT (yes, the same one we reviewed earlier this week) managed to place a JDM Honda RSX/Integra in the stands of Infineon Raceway during a NASA race. No one appears to have been hurt, but the driver had to be cut out of his Honda touring car. From reports, the Spoon Sports Honda hit the grass berm in the runoff area in turn 1 before being launched by momentum over the fence and into the grandstands. It apparently landed within a few rows of a group of people there to watch the race. A report from MadCat360 in the NASAFormus below:

Did anyone see it? I caught the tail end of it from the grand stands. What I guess happened was the car had some sort of problem (suspension? Tire?) and went spearing off at turn 1. It hit the grass berm there on the outside runoff and launched into the fence just below the score tower, didn't stop and landed in the center stands there, nearly hitting a bunch of people.

I heard the driver was all right but they had to tear apart the car to get him out. No spectators were hurt that I could see, though the car's nose hit just one row down from one person, maybe about 3 feet.

We got lucky today. That crash could have easily killed 5 people. There really needs to be a tire wall there, which I think they put up when NASCAR race there. Why don't they put any walls up for club races? Why aren't they permanent anyway?

I'm going to send a letter to Infineon alerting them of the safety situation there and I suggest you do the same. It would just be the easiest thing to put a permanent ARMCO barrier there with some tires, and have it ready for the 2009 season start. Maybe they could start putting some gravel traps in as well. It's bothersome to haul cars out, but those traps save lots of lives and cars as well.

I'm normally pretty reserved about being frightened in motorsports, but that crash really made me shocked at how little there really is to stop the cars from going into the stands there. It's just a very shallow berm and a chain link fence, and if that couldn't stop a Honda touring car from going into the stands at highway speed, then it definitely won't stop a Grand Am car, or an Indy Car.

[Source: NASA Forums]