Rallying throws up some of the craziest, wildest, and weirdest accidents at times. The nature of a sport that runs pretty much exclusively on roads normally used for the public to bimble around on means some of the strangest hazards are there to be hit. Perhaps few are stranger, though, than an outdoor swimming pool in the middle of a snowy Austrian town.
At the 2024 Jännerrallye, a local event taking place in Northern Austria, a Skoda Fabia RS Rally2 driven by Johannes Keferböck with co-driver Ilka Minor managed to find the unusual run-off area.
With the town roads covered in snow, it appears the Skoda approaches a long left-hander at just too much speed. Despite slamming onto the brakes, the Rally2-spec machine slides along the surface and slams through a fence before plunging into the swimming pool. Fortunately, both Keferböck and Minor both made it out of the pool safely. Sadly for Fabia, it seems to have sunk into an early retirement.
As a result of the incident, the 15th stage of the rally had to be canceled. In truth, the Skoda of Keferböck, who won the event in 2018, and Minor hadn’t much troubled the leaders of the rally by this point. The duo had racked up a few top 10 places on previous stages, but there was little to suggest mounting a serious attempt to win again.
However, there was more fortune for another Skoda Fabia in the event. Local favorite Michael Lengauer stole the show, winning six of the rally’s 18 stages and, ultimately, the whole event.
Keferböck and Minor’s dramatic accident wasn’t the only hair-raising moment of action in the rally. During an earlier stage of the rally, a snowy bank caught out one Citroen C3, sending it straight into a tree and onto its roof.
