‘I Just Had to Throw Up’ Bathurst 12 Hour Driver Miraculously Escapes Injury After Hitting Kangaroo at 155 MPH
Christopher Mies hit a kangaroo at 155 mph during the Bathurst 12 Hour endurance race in Australia, leaving him shaken but uninjured. His very expensive Haupt Racing Team Ford Mustang GT3, on the other hand, was unable to continue.
Mies was running seventh on the just the fourth lap of the race when he struck the kangaroo.
“We were all in line and basically within a thousandths of a second, a millisecond, the kangaroo showed up on the left, obviously at a very high speed,” Mies, a two-time winner of the event, told Speedcafe.
“So the moment I saw it was the impact. It was very unfortunate and it was quite a big one, but honestly, I’m glad that we have such a safe race car, it could have been much worse.
“If I can just imagine the whole kangaroo would have come inside. I mean, half of it was inside, so I’m glad I’m standing here now.”
Hitting the kangaroo left Mies with no visibility
“The issue was, I couldn’t see anything anymore, the windshield was fully smashed. Obviously, I was covered in blood and whatever is inside a kangaroo,” he continued.
“My eyes were full of blood and, how you call it, the guts from the kangaroo, so I had to clean them first because I had no idea where I was.
“I looked through the side window, saw a wall and tried to go as close as possible to the wall on the left side.
“I still saw the cars coming from the rear, so I wanted to be in a safe place as much as possible, not that someone doesn’t see me or whatever and hits me again. So I just tried to make it the safe way.”
Despite taking not one, but two showers, Christopher Mies said he could still smell it.
“I just had to throw up, I had to vomit,” he said, adding that “the smell was incredible.” He said he took two showers, but still had the smell in his nose.
“I can tell you the inside of a kangaroo doesn’t smell very nice,” he said.
Kangaroos interfering with the Bathurst 12 Hour endurance race isn’t a new problem
Mies also complained that the presence of kangaroos on the road course isn’t a new problem. In fact, several other cars reported damage from tangling with kangaroos during the early morning laps.
“Every year the kangaroos are around the track, we already had like a couple of safety cars for kangaroos,” he said. “I don’t know where this one came from. It must have been very quick and just sudden because there was no pre-warning, no yellow flags or nothing, no radio message that there’s a kangaroo near the track.”
“Kilometres of temporary fencing are erected by the Council at each event held on the Mountain in an effort to prevent Kangaroos from entering the circuit and, given the number of Kangaroos that may be in the vicinity, they are generally successful at doing so,” Bathurst 12 Hour organizers told SunSport.
“There are also rigorous procedures in place from Motorsport Australia to help manage the situation should Kangaroos access the circuit or its perimeter to ensure the drivers exercise caution.
“As we saw on Sunday, however, there are rare occasions where Kangaroos may find their way on to the circuit.
“Unfortunately, the risk of a Kangaroo entering the circuit is one of the variables that comes with competing at a circuit like Mount Panorama, which is completely unique to the venue and indeed the country.”
They added that they will be conducting a review of the incident with both the Bathurst Council and Motorsport Australia.
