If you’re like most racing fans, you not-so-secretly resent straw bales and their consistent and unearned ability to get the absolute best track-side seats in racing. Just by virtue of being large, inert, relatively dense yet not hard, and heavy, straw bales always get as close as possible to the action. It’s not fair. That’s why every now and then it’s good to see those smug bales get what-for as a speeding race car smacks into them and blasts them into mulch. And that’s what happened at the Goodwood Festival of Speed just a bit ago, as the electric Hyundai RN22e – a race car based on the production Ioniq 6 but showcasing some engineering we expect to see in the Ioniq 5 N – dramatically plowed into a mass of straw bales at the Festival of Speed hill Climb.
Here’s a video of the crash:
first goodwood crash pic.twitter.com/Mg4COfLlU8
— Chevrolet Sonic the Hedgehog 🏁 (@ApocApollo) July 13, 2023
Oh, damn! That’s a hell of a crash! Here it is again, in embedded video form, if you prefer that.
https://youtu.be/kcffMrj35aQ
Now, we’re not ghouls, it has been officially confirmed that there were no serious injuries, so that’s good, especially for the two people who were in the car. The crash happened at Molecomb corner, which is here:
We can’t really blame the Hyundai or the driver for losing it on the turn; it’s a notoriously tricky one, as you can see from the variety of cars that have eaten it on this very same turn, each taking out plenty of smug straw bales:
See? If an RS200 had trouble, don’t feel too bad, Hyundai.
The RS22e race car is very potent, making 577 horsepower and 546 pound-feet of torque. I wonder how much brake regen was being used; I know on the production Ionic 6 you can adjust that with steering wheel paddles. I wonder if over-reliance on regen compared to conventional braking played any role here? Or maybe blending of the tuning? I really don’t know.
The RN22e looks to be in pretty rough shape post-crash, with some body panels scattered amongst the bales, but I suspect it’s salvageable and will be back on the track, terrorizing straw once again.
Nothing like a good “roll in the hay!”
The next corner up the hill has a flint wall instead. So if you’re going to crash this was the best option.
I’ve driven the hill climb course, but in a diesel Transit van at normal road speed. Even in that the flint wall seemed big and scary.
I truly enjoy Goodwood.
That’s what she said.
Congratulations Hyundai. If the driver hadn’t crashed, I would have never watched this hillclimb run.
I was just watching earlier when a Mk1 Jag lost a back wheel and it went flying into the spectators.
Well so much for those regenerative brakes!
Man Hyundai wasn’t kidding when they said you can miss shifts with the fake DCT!
So now I have avoid Mustangs and the Ioniq 5N at cars & coffee events, got it
I blame the massive weight of modern EVs for the understeer :/
Physics strikes again!
Is this what they mean when they say someone “baled” out of the race? Let’s take a straw poll.