Hard Statistics

Just as we were going to press last month, we learned of the …..tragic death of historic racer Dino Crescentini, at Mosport (VR, News Brief, Aug. ’08). While a fatality at a historic race is always a shock, this one was even more disorienting, as it turns out there have been two Dino Crescentinis historic racing in the United States. One is California-based (a former SCCA Trans-Am competitor and regular driver in the Historic Grand Prix series) and the other a Michigan-based racer who recently had been competing in a distinctive Wolf center-seat Can-Am car. While it was a relief—for those of us in California—to eventually learn that it wasn’t “our” Dino, it was certainly no solace to know that a fellow vintage racer had lost his life doing what we all pursue with such passion.

The details of Crescentini’s accident are still not fully clear, but based on an eyewitness account by a spectator near the scene of the accident, Crescentini was quickly chasing down another car as the two climbed up Mosport’s Andretti Straight. As Crescentini closed in on the leading car, near the top of the hill, the spectator suggests that Crescentini might have had the “dirty air” from the leading car take away the Wolf’s front downforce. Whether this was the cause or not, Crescentini subsequently lost control and—as happened to John Surtees in a 1965 USRRC race and Scooter Patrick a few years later in a Formula 5000—the Wolf shot up in the air, and cart-wheeled, before colliding with the fence. Tragically, Crescentini never stood a chance.