While Murilee and the rest of Team V8olvo musters on with thoughts still on yesterday's tragedy at the 24 Hours of Lemons race at Altamont, we here at the Jalopnik Detroit bureau are lending a helping hand with coverage. We've just received news from the Gulf 39 team on the identity of their teammate behind the wheel of the Volvo 242 Turbo along with a little more detail on the preliminary on-scene investigation by the California Highway Patrol. We'd indicated to the team we only wanted to know the name after they'd had the opportunity to notify family, so although we're assuming that's been done already, we still wanted to make sure to include the name after the fold of this post to make certain it's been taken care of already. With that in mind — the short, but full, e-mail after the jump.
The CHP reported that the car was in working order. No mechanical failure seems to have appeared...the impact was estimated at 50 to 60 MPH...Cort Summerfield was 46 years old (02/01/1961)
Again, our deepest sympathies go out to Mr. Summerfield's family, friends and teammates and we fervently hope the accident doesn't harm what until this point was one of the great examples of grassroots motorsports in action.