A close shave as Thierry Neuville almost collided with a tractor during testing!

The view of hard core rally fans getting perilously close to these dirt-kicking machines is a norm at almost every rally stage and it surely is not going away anytime soon. However coming across a moving obstacle while tackling a course is a rare occurrence and Thierry Neuville got into a very close shave recently.

During the testing session of the 2015 Rally Deutschland, Neuville was going flat out through a stretch of road that goes through what seems like a plantation. Assuming that the road was cleared for the run and there were no hazards up ahead, he treated this run like any other testing session; until he realized that not all hazards necessarily comes from the road itself.

All of a sudden from the dense vegetation to Neuville’s left hand side came out a tractor that seemed to not know that there was a rally car heading in full throttle towards the road it was about to cross. Luckily in the final seconds Neuville managed to stomp on the brake to bring the car into a complete halt and the tractor even managed to back away as well.

This is a quick and good reminder that rally drivers are always exposed to unexpected challenges and dangers, even if the course is fully monitored. As how Neuville explains in Facebook, “even on highest level with strict safety procedures and professional marshals the danger still exists.”

 

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