Team Millenium/IRSA
Terry Zmrhal and Tracy McKay
The next 80 or so miles were a steady but gradual
net downhill. Despite the long shift, I was still pretty awake,
until that awful time just before dawn. Tracy was riding, so we
had Terry in the van, and couldn't blast music to stay awake.
We drove up the road, and I set an alarm, but was paranoid about
not waking up. I phoned Lulu, and asked her to give us a wakeup
call or look for us if the phone didn't work.
Terry started his next pull a bit sluggish and
said he was ready to try a sleep break again. He was rolling pretty
steady when we met up with Lulu. It was daylight, so we could
do leapfrog support. I hopped out to join Lulu for a while and
James headed up the road with Terry. Lulu had a room about 45
miles up the road that was still available, so we decided to take
advantage and let the guys get a quick break there. Lulu had a
really tough time finding a room the night before and apparently
there were no others nearby, so it was our best option. Lulu took
over for me with James, and I headed up the road in her car and
Typhoon to get to the motel in Westcliff.
Shortly after we got in, we had a radio transmission
that Terry was close and to get Tracy ready. It was quite garbled
and we couldn't raise anyone afterwards on phones or radio We
had just gotten in, so we figured we'd hear more later and be
able to coordinate then. Philip stayed by the radio and phone.
Tracy needed clean clothes. It was then thatI
found out he only brought two pair of shorts ! I headed off in
search of a Laundromat, and a quick bite to eat. I ran into Ish
Makk and his crew having breakfast. Pneumonia had stopped them
and they were about to head back to California. I was pretty toasted
at that stage, and couldn't seem to figure out how to get breakfast
at this diner. I went back to the Laundromat to put the clothes
in the dryer and found a cafe across the way where I got some
pancakes.
I got back to the room with clean clothes, and
figured Terry would be up soon, and I'd finally get some sleep.
Then Philip got the call that since we weren't at the time station
waiting, they kept going and Terry was heading down the hill out
of town. We convinced them to stop and wait, that there were no
other rooms nearby and Terry needed his break too. Tracy and Typhoon
headed out to meet them and Zephyr brought Terry back.
Lulu worked on Terry a bit, and soon afterwards
Da Bus showed up. It was almost noon race time. I was cooked
and couldn't understand why they were so late again. Muffy said
she had booked a room up the road in Walsenburg for night crew
sleep. I should lie down on the back seat of Da Bus and
start to get some sleep. I was in tears at this stage. We started
up the road to catch Typhoon and relieve Sharon and Philip,
who had to be almost as tired as I was.
We had discovered something was wrong with the
phone in Da Bus (it didn't get incoming calls), and made
my phone the new Bus phone. Muffy had tried to arrange
to stay, but just couldn't, so she was heading off to Denver in
Lulu's rental car. Since all the night crew was so tired, Mary
was to drive us up to sleep, and Michael would handle Zephyr solo,
doing leapfrog support and road side handoffs. He would pick Mary
up in Walsenburg.
I asked Lulu to come back and talk to me and help
me relax a bit. We were having a great chat about the things going
on in both our lives, since we last saw each other, when suddenly
I heard yelling to stop, felt the impact of a crash, and found
myself in slow motion flying off the seat. After what seemed like
an eternity we stopped, and folks scrambled to help each other
out of the van. Lulu said something was wrong with her back. I
was still dazed from exhaustion, and just picked up a few things
around me and crawled out. I did look for my phone, but didn't
see it. After I got out, I looked at my wrist which had a bit
of a cut, and some swelling and realized it hurt to move it much.
I don't know quite how, but I eventually was sitting next to Lulu,
and James was wrapping my wrist. Ish Makk's crew was there and
took us to the hospital to get checked out. The good news was
no broken bones, but I had a sprained wrist and Lulu had some
strained muscles in her back. As a PT, Lulu was able to figure
out a way to make movement less painful, and was really up for
pressing on. Ish Makk and crew then carried us to our motel. These
guys were awesome and I can't thank them enough for all they did.
This is what I later learned happened. We had
just caught Typhoon. We passed, and Mary saw a place to
park on the left, and started to make a left turn to do the crew
exchange. At this point the truck behind us was attempting the
pass Typhoon, and his us squarely in the side. Mary did
a great job steering us straight down the little embankment and
stopping the van, without rolling it.
Hindsight is 20/20, and my comments here are not
intended to assign blame, but hopefully prevent this type of thing
in the future. We had just passed our rider's pace van. He had
4-way flashers, a slow moving vehicle triangle, a sign that said
bike race. They were moving at 15 mph. We had matching signage.
We were obviously together. It was not unreasonable for the truck
to pass this slow moving group. He could not see our turn signal.
Typhoon blocked his view of us. In the future all exchanges
like this really should happen on the right side of the road.
If making a left turn, it is really important to make sure it
is clear in both directions. The driver of the truck was
given a ticket for passing on the double yellow line.
Since Mary was driving, she needed to stick around.
James stayed with her. Since injuries were minor, Tracy was encouraged
to head up the road. At some point the 2 riders and 4 remaining
crew regrouped and supported both riders from one vehicle with
the other crew heading up the road for some needed rest. I heard
at some point that everyone went down for a break, but communication
was sketchy for a day and I'm still not clear on everything.
Mary and James made their way to Pueblo and then
Denver to try and rent a replacement vehicle. They got a minivan
and came back and got some sleep at the motel in Walsenburg. The
next morning, we all got up, had breakfast and headed over to
the tow-yard to get as much as we could from Da Bus. We
got all the crew bags, the massage table and as much as we could
fit in the van, but had to leave a lot. A15 passenger van holds
a lot more stuff than a minivan. We then began the 600 mile journey
back up the road to rejoin the race. Mary named our new vehicle
the Phoenix, to symbolize our rise from the Ashes, if you
will.
Our motel in Walsenburg was right at the halfway point.
Rather than follow the official route on smaller roads, we took
the highway across Kansas, to try to catch up faster. If you did
RAAM and wondered why you didn't see the metal people, you were
NOT in Kansas!
Why I feel lucky - here's an article that appeared
in the Denver Post the next day.
Crash that killed four tied to 'death trap' van
By Greg Griffin
Denver Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 23, 2002 - The rollover accident that killed four
Oregon firefighters in western Colorado on Friday is the latest
in a string of similar wrecks involving what many say is a dangerous
vehicle that should be recalled. Investigators won't pin the cause
on the Ford F350 15-passenger van, but State Patrol trooper Don
Moseman said it didn't help.
"The center of gravity in those vans is very high,"
Moseman said. "People don't realize that if you choose to
drive those vehicles at the speed limit, and you do have to make
a sudden action, the chance of a rollover is extremely high."
Federal officials have issued numerous warnings about the rollover
risk of heavily loaded 15-passenger vans, but they've stopped
short of a recall. A growing number of safety experts, however,
say the government should force Ford, General Motors and DaimlerChrysler
to recall and redesign the vehicles.
Martin Cohen, a vehicle-safety consultant and engineer who has
testified against van makers, calls Ford's E350 Super Club Wagon
"one of the most dangerous passenger vehicles for rollover
ever built."
Former National Highway Traffic Safety Administration chief Joan
Claybrook calls the 15-passenger van "a death trap"
that becomes more dangerous when used for the intended purpose
of hauling many people. The vans are being phased out by many
Colorado school districts, which own more than 400, because of
safety concerns and rising insurance costs.
A van overturned in Idaho last summer, killing five Colorado
church-group members, and four school vans rolled in the state
between February 2001 and April 2002, injuring 44. Nationally,
558 people were killed in 388 large-van rollovers from 1990 to
2000.
Regulators and manufacturers say the vans are safe when operated
by a properly trained driver.
"We have no evidence at this point that 15-passenger vans
are inherently unsafe," NHTSA spokesman Rae Tyson told The
Denver Post last fall. "Some vehicles are more likely to
roll over."
Stability problems with 15-passenger vans have become a significant
concern of the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates
accidents, but spokeswoman Lauren Peluzzi said the board hasn't
launched an investigation into Friday's crash.
The NHTSA has warned twice in the past 15 months that large-capacity
vans have a high risk of rolling over when heavily loaded and
that they require special handling.
The rollover risk of a van loaded with 10 or more passengers
is triple that of a van loaded with five or fewer, the NHTSA determined.
Even lightly loaded, vans, pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles
are two to three times more likely to roll than passenger cars.
The overall fatality rate in large vans, however, is actually
lower than in cars because their size offers some passenger protection.
The van that crashed Saturday east of Parachute on Interstate
70 carried 11 people and some gear, and was driven by Megan Helm,
21, who survived the accident.
Neither Helm's employer, Grayback Forestry, nor the U.S. Forest
Service could say what training, if any, she got beforehand. The
Forest Service does not require driver training, other than a
standard license, for contract fire crews, spokesman Roger Peterson
said.
Seat-belt use often determines whether occupants survive a rollover,
but it remains unclear how much of a factor it was Friday.
One of the passengers who died wore a seat belt, as did another
in critical condition Saturday, the State Patrol's Moseman said.
Several who presumably didn't and were thrown from the van lived.
Staff writer Mike Soraghan contributed to this report.
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