Streets of Willow 7/30 & 7/31, update: crash :( Options

[brant]

wow...
I'm so sorry
I've been in your shoe's 3 times now at the track
its not fun

but it will be fine in the end
so sorry about that though!

brant

[siverson]

I dropped my right wheel just off the track on the right in the bend in the back straight before corner 9. And then I'm honestly not exactly sure what happened. I think the car's balance was upset so I could not brake well and I almost immediately went sideways into the dirt after corner 9 (on the inside of the track).

That was by far the scariest part because I was probably going about 105-110 mph at the end of the straight (just hitting 4th; with my tall gearing/redline 3rd goes to 105) and I was afraid I was going to dig into a hole and flip. I remember relaxing when the car started losing some speed ("whew, I'm not going to flip") and then I saw the light approach out of the corner of my eye and I slide sideways into the light with my left front corner. Maybe I was going 20-30 mph (I really have no idea) when I hit the light, it got knocked over, and then I ended up about 20-30 feet away from it. That sucked.

In retrospect, I think I started to get a lot more comfortable with the Bowl before the back straight, so I was carrying a lot more speed into the straight than I previously had been, so I needed to brake sooner and harder.

Plus, another strange thing that happened is that there was no impact on the right side of the car, but the bottom of the right strut broke right at the ball joint. The ball joint didn't brake as I initially thought. So I'm not sure if the strut broke when I dropped a wheel off the track (it could have been a lot of force given the speed) or if it broke during the slide through the dirt. Who knows, and I guess it really doesn't matter at this point.

[rick 918-S]

How much other damage from the impact to the light? nothing?

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/thisthreadisworthlesswithoutpics.gif)

[0396]

Steve,

I’m glad you made it home.. yes we both had fun …until that little spin- you will be back
See you next year at the Streets.

[SirAndy]

Noooooooo .... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

Glad you are OK!


As far as the damage, one thing i learned from pulling my two cars on the Celette bench, you need to cut any stiffening (cage, braces etc.) in the damaged area before you start any pulling.
I had to cut my roll-cage in 4 places to get the tub to bend back into place ...

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

[yeahmag]

Man that sucks... It is so hard to fight the instinct to correct, but if you start to go off it is best to go off straight! I've had this drilled in to my head from all of my mentors and so far haven't spun from dropping a wheel.

I've spun for almost every other reason possible, but not in the dirt!

Brad has been a great friend to me too.