Þokkalegt
Sunshine Coast News in Maroochydore:
"Duo cheat 270m/918' death plunge"
Like an impending rollercoaster ride with the descent just beyond view,
Scott Juniper and Dan Bowden's hearts were in their throats as their rally
car slid toward a 270-metre ravine on New Zealand farmland. But this
was no thrill ride.
When the ground disappeared beneath the 2003 Twin Turbo Porsche and
only sky stretched ahead - neither knew which track gravity would take
them. Scott went silent, Dan started screaming expletives. The silver
Porsche flipped about 30 times before landing in an inaccessible ravine,
8km from the finish line of a Targa New Zealand racing stage.
Excerpt from Sunshine News
"We came up to the corner and it was listed as an extremely dangerous
caution. Scott had slowed down but the brakes didn't work and we went
right off the edge," Dan said.
"We were airborne for about 50 metres but we couldn't see all the way to
the bottom then. We could only see 170m down but there was another
ledge and another
100m. The g-forces involved and the rolling was unbelievable - the safety
system in the car was the only reason we lived".
"At the start I didn't think we were going to die but the roll cage started
beating down on our heads - then every roll we landed on the roof was
absolutely terrifying. We couldn't even see where we were when we got
out of the car and we could not believe we'd survived."
The prominent Sunshine Coast businessmen returned late yesterday with
Dan sporting one of the best black eyes I've ever seen and Scott with
chipped teeth, harness and
helmet marks, and an "enormous" headache after being knocked
unconscious.
The car had the strongest roll cage available, seats that enveloped their
heads, and strong harnesses and helmets. While Dan plans to return to
racing for the Noosa Hillclimb next weekend, Scott said he would wait
another month before deciding whether to get behind the wheel of a rally
car again.
"I was able to see down when we slid over the edge and I thought we
were dead, I didn't think we would walk away," Scott said. "I had a co
-driver with me; you just start to realize the gravity of how responsible
you actually are for someone's life. I remember quite a few of the
tumbles but then there was a long space of rolling in the air and I just
remember a really hard impact - then I don't remember anything until
the bottom."
Dan, the 32-year-old managing director of a car care product company
called Bowden's Own , said the biggest challenge was trying to walk back
up the 270m hill to let people know they were there. "It was that steep
we couldn't work out how to get up," he said.
"But it could have been a whole other story if we had both broken bones
because no-one would have known we were there. "Someone's watching
over us, we're destined for greater things."
