Al Unser jr seriously injured.
Discussion
Just got this through
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/3209170.stm
Thought a broken pelvis wasn't that serious
>>> Edited by condor on Monday 20th October 22:18
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/3209170.stm
Thought a broken pelvis wasn't that serious
>>> Edited by condor on Monday 20th October 22:18
It isn't serious, just typical BBC over the top reporting. 
Unser Jr's sister Mary Unser Tanner said he had several fractures but was not scheduled for surgery. He's in a lot of pain but he's going to be OK, she said. He is expected to be released from hospital by the end of the week.
Unser Jr's sister Mary Unser Tanner said he had several fractures but was not scheduled for surgery. He's in a lot of pain but he's going to be OK, she said. He is expected to be released from hospital by the end of the week.
Don't think you guys know that much about Bobby Unser and what an incredible guy he was 
so here's a statement taken from another site
"Bobby Unser on Wilderness"
IMPLEMENTATION OF WILDERNESS ACT OVERSIGHT HEARING
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EXPLORING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE 1964 WILDERNESS ACT BY THE FOREST SERVICE, THE BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT, AND THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
APRIL 15, 1997--WASHINGTON, DC
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
STATEMENT OF BOBBY UNSER, PROFESSIONAL RACE CAR DRIVER, ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO
Mr. UNSER. Well, I don't have anything written, but I thank everybody for letting me come. I think it is very nice and it is nice that the people of the United States will see that our elected officials do care about what is happening out in the country.
My story starts with a nice day of snowmobiling. A friend of mine--I have a ranch in northern New Mexico, a little town called Chama. A friend of mine took off, snowmobiling, and we drove into Colorado in the high country for a snowmobile ride, and it was the first time he had ever been in those mountains, which I had been in many times.
So we went up there, I unload the snowmobiles, a totally legal place to be in the national forest, and teach him how to ride; and we go up into some higher country and start climbing hills.
Am I too loud? OK. Sometimes I don't hear too well, so I sometimes get too loud. But at any rate, started snowmobiling up there and when we got up on top of these high hills we were climbing, the wind came up, and we found ourselves in a ground blizzard. We are really like up on top of the world.
Later on, if I have time, I will have a map and I can show somebody what it looks like up there.
But a ground blizzard comes up, not snow out of the sky, but wind, 60 or 70 miles an hour, causing the new snow to blow. A common thing in Cheyenne, Wyoming, people who come from that part of the country know, you instantly go to a whiteout; so ultimately, we were trying to find our way out of that.
Robert, the guy that was with me, got his snowmobile stuck. He had to stay very close to me because if he loses me or I lose him, he is just going to die, it is just that simple. He doesn't know anything about this part of the country or this part of life.
So after he got his docked, it kind of went off in the embankment and he couldn't get it out; and I said, ''The heck with it, I will get it another day,'' got him behind my machine, which--mine was ironically a brand-new sled, the brand spanking new trip on it.
As started happening, mine started giving problems in running. I am trying to go along and find the edge of the mountain, so I can look off and see a valley and discover where I am and, if necessary, possibly get down off of this plateau where the snow is blowing so hard. There is not anything I can do about it except that. Then my machine starts quitting.
Well, we worked on the things from roughly like about 2 o'clock in the afternoon. We started unloading snowmobiles about noon, and we got up there about 1:00; we started working on the machine about 2 o'clock, and this went on, I am shortening this up a whole bunch for everybody--but this goes on until it becomes dark.
Now I am lost worse because of the way the machine--I get it running for a little bit; it would run half a city block, maybe a block, and it would quit again, and each time it got to where it was harder to get started. We had taken the machine pretty much apart, as I had quite a few tools with me, and both of us are good mechanics, Robert as good as I am--holding the hood up, trying to work in 60- or 70-mile-an-hour wind is not too easy to do.
Ultimately, it will not run anymore, darkness comes and literally, we are in trouble, no question about it. So I just take whatever we have on the snowmobile off in the form of emergency rations, which is a little fold-out saw and a compass. A compass doesn't do much good unless you kind of know where you start from, incidentally.
But we start walking, and the main thing is, I have to go down and I have to get out of this wind. So we start down as much as we can. Wherever it goes down, it makes no difference, but the direction has to be down to get out of this wind because we can't live up there. For sure we would die if we stayed in the high country in the wind in the blowing snow.
So I go down, and of course, it is darkness immediately; it gets dark at 5 o'clock in the afternoon this time of year, which is December, December the 20th, to be exact, and so the only thing we can do in order to survive that night is a snow cave. Robert had lost one of--his left glove, so we only had my two gloves and his right glove, so you can guess who had to dig the snow cave, so I dug on the snow cave, Robert started cutting branches off the trees, both for fire wood, in case the wind goes down, 60- to 70-mile-an-hour wind. And that is in--at excess of 1,100 feet, you can't build a fire too easily, lack of oxygen, and wind, and the snowmobile had little gasoline, so we had nothing to start a fire with.
So we build a cave. The cave works, Robert cut a lot of branches, to lay both on the ground for him to sleep on. His uniform wasn't as good as mine. I had real good clothing on; he had new clothing, but not as good as mine. I had new boots and everything going.
So, ultimately, we spent the night in the snow cave, didn't freeze to death, which, for sure, wasn't very comfortable, didn't get any sleep and no gripes about that, but we got up at daylight the next morning. I look at our tracks coming down. They were basically covered up, but you could see them down in the trees, so we started walking out.
I notice the light came on. I am sorry.
Mr. HANSEN. I will turn the light off. Go ahead.
Mr. UNSER. I will talk as fast as I can.
So at any rate, we make a determination and a decision to walk out of where we were; and I could see the valley, I knew generally where we were going. Eighteen hours of walking, we did in deep snow with no provisions. I was sick, not knowing that I was sick, had a virus, I vomited 20 to 30 times approximately, to the point of where I was vomiting blood.
Robert had prepared to die; he didn't think he was going to make it. He wouldn't eat the candy I had because he was sure that was what made me sick. Ultimately, I made him eat the candy and drink the water and also made him break some of the trail because the deep snow was rough to walk in without snowshoes.
Eighteen hours later, we found a barn, called for help. The help came up, and we went down and back to Chama and made it all right that way. And then, of course, I was happy we lived, and everybody else seemed to be.
And what was it--it was like I lost an awful lot of weight--it was 16 days, I believe it was, later, I go to the national Forest Service to say, just in case, that we were in the wilderness, don't think we weren't, don't know that we were. But I knew I needed to find my snowmobile, to get it out of the mountains. I paid over $7,000 for it, and it is brand-new. And so I went down there with the idea of getting the snowmobile out, getting the letter of permission, in case I had to go into the wilderness.
Instead, they met me with two officers from Colorado, and after spending all day with them, or all afternoon with them, from approximately 12 or 1 o'clock in the afternoon until approximately 5:30, they, instead of helping me or giving me permission to go look for my snowmobile, presented me with a citation, a ticket.
Now you must understand, I don't know that I was in the wilderness, don't think I was; they don't know my snowmobile was in the wilderness, they haven't even seen me ride a snowmobile. They don't know I have done anything wrong; I certainly don't think I have.
I backtracked with their help. I described where I had been. They had pictures. They determined from my description of me backtracking with them, under the pretense they are helping me. As soon as we finished with this, the lady police officer reaches down under the table in her briefcase, pulls out a ticket, handing it, says--this is it with a big smile--and said, if I hadn't been Bobby Unser, a celebrity, this would have just passed over and then told me it was caused directly from--this is, honest to goodness, what happened--told me it was caused by the Sierra Club in Washington getting hold of the Forest Service. And they were ordered that if they thought my snowmobile was in the wilderness, to give me a ticket.
Now, it isn't the American way to give somebody a citation or ticket for somebody they hadn't seen. In other words, nobody saw me ride a snowmobile, just me and Robert are the only two human beings that saw this happen, and I certainly didn't start out on the wilderness, as I will show you on the map later. I started off in a totally legal place where thousands and thousands of people--I have been snowmobiling up there. I would go snowmobiling without fear.
Another thing that is real important, real quick. There are no marks on where the wilderness starts; even the people giving me the citation, the police officers, didn't know where the wilderness starts. We get maps, they can't tell you, they can't describe it. They assumed I knew and that I was in the wilderness knowingly, and I was not; and if I was, I have been doing it for years and so has everybody else up there, which is not true.
After we got the maps, we found out where the wilderness area is--roughly, you can't do it--of which Mr. Pendley has pictures. I did videos, I did everything later on, of the area. There are no signs; there are no marks.
Now, in a ranch in Colorado, if you want to post your ranch, the State law says you have to post it every 150 feet. The wilderness is underposted; there are no markings. And yet if I go onto your posted ranch, I have to be prosecuted via the owner of the ranch. In this particular case, the government is prosecuting me, obviously, for something they don't even know that I did. They don't know--the newspapers and television--that I was even in the mountains. They certainly don't know I was on their pristine wilderness that they must think is theirs and not for my use.
Thank you, sir.
Mr. HANSEN. Thank you.
I get to exercise a prerogative of the Chair. I chair another meeting, it is called the Ethics Committee, so I am holding about 20 members, and I want to ask one question.
Did I hear you correctly that you got the ticket and the person presenting the ticket to you stated that they had received information from the Sierra Club, and that because you are a celebrity, that the Sierra Club demanded that you get a ticket? Did I hear that correctly?
UNSER. Absolutely, 100 percent. I could take a lie detector test and I will offer it. I could take sodium pentothal and would also offer that, that it, in fact, happened as I am saying--I am not here to tell lies--physically said that in front of me in the room, and said the Sierra Club called Washington. Washington told them that if they determined that I was in the wilderness, write me a ticket. Now, understand, they did not even see me ride a snowmobile.
Mr. HANSEN. Thank you. Unbelievable. Thank you for your interesting testimony.
so here's a statement taken from another site "Bobby Unser on Wilderness"
IMPLEMENTATION OF WILDERNESS ACT OVERSIGHT HEARING
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EXPLORING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE 1964 WILDERNESS ACT BY THE FOREST SERVICE, THE BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT, AND THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
APRIL 15, 1997--WASHINGTON, DC
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
STATEMENT OF BOBBY UNSER, PROFESSIONAL RACE CAR DRIVER, ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO
Mr. UNSER. Well, I don't have anything written, but I thank everybody for letting me come. I think it is very nice and it is nice that the people of the United States will see that our elected officials do care about what is happening out in the country.
My story starts with a nice day of snowmobiling. A friend of mine--I have a ranch in northern New Mexico, a little town called Chama. A friend of mine took off, snowmobiling, and we drove into Colorado in the high country for a snowmobile ride, and it was the first time he had ever been in those mountains, which I had been in many times.
So we went up there, I unload the snowmobiles, a totally legal place to be in the national forest, and teach him how to ride; and we go up into some higher country and start climbing hills.
Am I too loud? OK. Sometimes I don't hear too well, so I sometimes get too loud. But at any rate, started snowmobiling up there and when we got up on top of these high hills we were climbing, the wind came up, and we found ourselves in a ground blizzard. We are really like up on top of the world.
Later on, if I have time, I will have a map and I can show somebody what it looks like up there.
But a ground blizzard comes up, not snow out of the sky, but wind, 60 or 70 miles an hour, causing the new snow to blow. A common thing in Cheyenne, Wyoming, people who come from that part of the country know, you instantly go to a whiteout; so ultimately, we were trying to find our way out of that.
Robert, the guy that was with me, got his snowmobile stuck. He had to stay very close to me because if he loses me or I lose him, he is just going to die, it is just that simple. He doesn't know anything about this part of the country or this part of life.
So after he got his docked, it kind of went off in the embankment and he couldn't get it out; and I said, ''The heck with it, I will get it another day,'' got him behind my machine, which--mine was ironically a brand-new sled, the brand spanking new trip on it.
As started happening, mine started giving problems in running. I am trying to go along and find the edge of the mountain, so I can look off and see a valley and discover where I am and, if necessary, possibly get down off of this plateau where the snow is blowing so hard. There is not anything I can do about it except that. Then my machine starts quitting.
Well, we worked on the things from roughly like about 2 o'clock in the afternoon. We started unloading snowmobiles about noon, and we got up there about 1:00; we started working on the machine about 2 o'clock, and this went on, I am shortening this up a whole bunch for everybody--but this goes on until it becomes dark.
Now I am lost worse because of the way the machine--I get it running for a little bit; it would run half a city block, maybe a block, and it would quit again, and each time it got to where it was harder to get started. We had taken the machine pretty much apart, as I had quite a few tools with me, and both of us are good mechanics, Robert as good as I am--holding the hood up, trying to work in 60- or 70-mile-an-hour wind is not too easy to do.
Ultimately, it will not run anymore, darkness comes and literally, we are in trouble, no question about it. So I just take whatever we have on the snowmobile off in the form of emergency rations, which is a little fold-out saw and a compass. A compass doesn't do much good unless you kind of know where you start from, incidentally.
But we start walking, and the main thing is, I have to go down and I have to get out of this wind. So we start down as much as we can. Wherever it goes down, it makes no difference, but the direction has to be down to get out of this wind because we can't live up there. For sure we would die if we stayed in the high country in the wind in the blowing snow.
So I go down, and of course, it is darkness immediately; it gets dark at 5 o'clock in the afternoon this time of year, which is December, December the 20th, to be exact, and so the only thing we can do in order to survive that night is a snow cave. Robert had lost one of--his left glove, so we only had my two gloves and his right glove, so you can guess who had to dig the snow cave, so I dug on the snow cave, Robert started cutting branches off the trees, both for fire wood, in case the wind goes down, 60- to 70-mile-an-hour wind. And that is in--at excess of 1,100 feet, you can't build a fire too easily, lack of oxygen, and wind, and the snowmobile had little gasoline, so we had nothing to start a fire with.
So we build a cave. The cave works, Robert cut a lot of branches, to lay both on the ground for him to sleep on. His uniform wasn't as good as mine. I had real good clothing on; he had new clothing, but not as good as mine. I had new boots and everything going.
So, ultimately, we spent the night in the snow cave, didn't freeze to death, which, for sure, wasn't very comfortable, didn't get any sleep and no gripes about that, but we got up at daylight the next morning. I look at our tracks coming down. They were basically covered up, but you could see them down in the trees, so we started walking out.
I notice the light came on. I am sorry.
Mr. HANSEN. I will turn the light off. Go ahead.
Mr. UNSER. I will talk as fast as I can.
So at any rate, we make a determination and a decision to walk out of where we were; and I could see the valley, I knew generally where we were going. Eighteen hours of walking, we did in deep snow with no provisions. I was sick, not knowing that I was sick, had a virus, I vomited 20 to 30 times approximately, to the point of where I was vomiting blood.
Robert had prepared to die; he didn't think he was going to make it. He wouldn't eat the candy I had because he was sure that was what made me sick. Ultimately, I made him eat the candy and drink the water and also made him break some of the trail because the deep snow was rough to walk in without snowshoes.
Eighteen hours later, we found a barn, called for help. The help came up, and we went down and back to Chama and made it all right that way. And then, of course, I was happy we lived, and everybody else seemed to be.
And what was it--it was like I lost an awful lot of weight--it was 16 days, I believe it was, later, I go to the national Forest Service to say, just in case, that we were in the wilderness, don't think we weren't, don't know that we were. But I knew I needed to find my snowmobile, to get it out of the mountains. I paid over $7,000 for it, and it is brand-new. And so I went down there with the idea of getting the snowmobile out, getting the letter of permission, in case I had to go into the wilderness.
Instead, they met me with two officers from Colorado, and after spending all day with them, or all afternoon with them, from approximately 12 or 1 o'clock in the afternoon until approximately 5:30, they, instead of helping me or giving me permission to go look for my snowmobile, presented me with a citation, a ticket.
Now you must understand, I don't know that I was in the wilderness, don't think I was; they don't know my snowmobile was in the wilderness, they haven't even seen me ride a snowmobile. They don't know I have done anything wrong; I certainly don't think I have.
I backtracked with their help. I described where I had been. They had pictures. They determined from my description of me backtracking with them, under the pretense they are helping me. As soon as we finished with this, the lady police officer reaches down under the table in her briefcase, pulls out a ticket, handing it, says--this is it with a big smile--and said, if I hadn't been Bobby Unser, a celebrity, this would have just passed over and then told me it was caused directly from--this is, honest to goodness, what happened--told me it was caused by the Sierra Club in Washington getting hold of the Forest Service. And they were ordered that if they thought my snowmobile was in the wilderness, to give me a ticket.
Now, it isn't the American way to give somebody a citation or ticket for somebody they hadn't seen. In other words, nobody saw me ride a snowmobile, just me and Robert are the only two human beings that saw this happen, and I certainly didn't start out on the wilderness, as I will show you on the map later. I started off in a totally legal place where thousands and thousands of people--I have been snowmobiling up there. I would go snowmobiling without fear.
Another thing that is real important, real quick. There are no marks on where the wilderness starts; even the people giving me the citation, the police officers, didn't know where the wilderness starts. We get maps, they can't tell you, they can't describe it. They assumed I knew and that I was in the wilderness knowingly, and I was not; and if I was, I have been doing it for years and so has everybody else up there, which is not true.
After we got the maps, we found out where the wilderness area is--roughly, you can't do it--of which Mr. Pendley has pictures. I did videos, I did everything later on, of the area. There are no signs; there are no marks.
Now, in a ranch in Colorado, if you want to post your ranch, the State law says you have to post it every 150 feet. The wilderness is underposted; there are no markings. And yet if I go onto your posted ranch, I have to be prosecuted via the owner of the ranch. In this particular case, the government is prosecuting me, obviously, for something they don't even know that I did. They don't know--the newspapers and television--that I was even in the mountains. They certainly don't know I was on their pristine wilderness that they must think is theirs and not for my use.
Thank you, sir.
Mr. HANSEN. Thank you.
I get to exercise a prerogative of the Chair. I chair another meeting, it is called the Ethics Committee, so I am holding about 20 members, and I want to ask one question.
Did I hear you correctly that you got the ticket and the person presenting the ticket to you stated that they had received information from the Sierra Club, and that because you are a celebrity, that the Sierra Club demanded that you get a ticket? Did I hear that correctly?
UNSER. Absolutely, 100 percent. I could take a lie detector test and I will offer it. I could take sodium pentothal and would also offer that, that it, in fact, happened as I am saying--I am not here to tell lies--physically said that in front of me in the room, and said the Sierra Club called Washington. Washington told them that if they determined that I was in the wilderness, write me a ticket. Now, understand, they did not even see me ride a snowmobile.
Mr. HANSEN. Thank you. Unbelievable. Thank you for your interesting testimony.
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