Faithful tipster Scott sent over this bit from ESPN regarding Champ Car-driver Cristiano da Matta's collision with a deer during a practice session at Elkhart Lake. Cristiano is currently hospitalized in critical condition, in a medically-induced coma, due to a subdural hematoma. In layman's terms, it means that the accident resulted in a burst blood vessel on the surface of his brain. Stefan Johannson — who courteously dropped off the Bullrun so's we could snake his room at the W Hotel in San Diego — also had a run-in with a deer back in '87 while racing F1 for McLaren in Austria. He comments, "I got a hell of a fright, I can tell you. And the thing is that the deer was apparently running around in the woods and the field for some time but no one thought to have practice stopped."
Meanwhile, Road America officials are saying that although deer have been known to leap the 8-foot, barbed-wire-topped fence, Road America media director Julie Sebranek notes, "The race track has been here for 50 years. It's highly, highly unusual." We're inclined to agree with Sebranek. We hope that da Matta fully recovers from the incident, and as we mentioned yesterday, we wish he, his family, and the RuSPORT team the best.
Champ Car driver critical after collision with deer [ESPN]
Related:
(Deer) Blood on the Track: da Matta Hits Deer at Road America [Internal]