Eric Thompson: High flyers brought back to Earth

Mark Webber's Red Bull flips over in the air after colliding with Heikki Kovalainen's Lotus. Photo / Supplied

I was at the International Rally of Whangarei over the weekend, and on day two the rally cars tackle the Hella Bridge as part of one of the stages. The bridge is a spectator magnet as the cars will grab huge amounts of air as they hit the approach and launch themselves spectacularly into the air.

The rally drivers are undertaking this feat with a modicum of control and on landing carry on through the stage. Watching this got me thinking about other cars rocketing into the wild blue yonder. Most recently Red Bull Racing's Formula One driver Mark Webber doing an impersonation of a Space Shuttle launch at the European Grand Prix.

For those who didn't see it, Webber attempted to pass Heikki Kovalainen but instead used the back of the Finn's car as a launch pad. The Aussie headed moon-wards before landing upside down and then flipping back upright and spearing into the tyres.

Webber nonchalantly got out of the car and walked away, unlike ex-Formula One racer Nigel Mansell after his crash at the 24 Hours Le Mans. The Brit almost elegantly rear ended his car into the Armco at next to no speed. He looked like he'd been pole axed by the Empire State Building as he was carried of with his arms dangling by his side and so forth. World Cup soccer players would have given Mansell a standing ovation for such a Hollywood.

However, the advantage Webber has is that it was the third time he's taken to the air in a race car. As far as I know it's happened to him twice before and each time must surely have been heart-in-the-mouth stuff.

The previous two times were at the 1999 Le Mans race when he was driving the Mercedes CLR-GT1 car. He first went airborne at the Indianapolis corner during Thursday's practice. The car was completely rebuilt with more down-force and Webber took it out again on race day.

This time Webber didn't even make it through Saturday's practice before he and the car again flipped before the Mulsanne Corner. Despite this and the possibility of a repeat of the horrendous 1955 accident, where a Mercedes ended up flying over an earthen bank into the crowd killing over 80 people, Norbert Haug decided to leave the other two cars racing.

Just four hours later Peter Dumbrek's CLR took off in spectacular fashion and ended up in the trees. Haug must have finally seen the light and parked his pride in the garage because he withdraw the remaining car driven by Bernd Schneider.

Needless to say the CLR project was canned, as flying wings don't make good race cars.

Webber walked away, a bit battered and bruised I dare say, from his two attempts to become the first man into space driving a car, so his Valencia crash must have been a bit of a "bugger, here we go again ..." moment.

Maybe Red Bull Racing and Mercedes should get together and design and build aircraft, and at the same time Boeing should try their hand at building a race car because its Dreamliner is about two years behind schedule.