914R makes contact, But not the good kind Options

[campbellcj]

Saturday I had my first car-to-car contact in 15 years of track driving. This was at Streets of Willow counter-clockwise direction, at the end of the front straight where you have to haul down from >100mph to make a 180° left sweeper. A guy in a significantly modded GMG WC-Turbo 997TT (600+ HP and brakes the size of my wheels) missed his braking point and dive-bombed on the INSIDE of me as I was starting to turn in hard to the apex.

This was time-attack (time-trial) not cup racing, so we were under controlled passing but regardless he was NOT making a pass, he was out of control. I was done braking and clearly owned the corner and there was no possible way he was going to make the corner. He was a new-ish driver and otherwise would have done the no-brainer thing of staying to the outside and simply running straight off.

Several course workers saw this and reported he was at fault, which he did not deny. He said he was fully into ABS and could not steer or stop any quicker. So now he is suspended (POC rules) with a 13/13 but zero damage to his $100K car. I have a clean record and my health but 914R has a caved-in door and fuched-up paint and decals.

I count my blessings as it would have been MUCH worse had it been a split-second later with my car rotated farther into the turn. As it was, I saw him in my peripheral vision in the last milliseconds and jinked right slightly, lessening the impact to a glancing side blow off his wheel/tire.

I'm not sure of the moral of this story, other than be careful out there, especially with the newer drivers in very fast cars and more money than skill. This has actually motivated me more to bump to the race group to run exclusively with the more experienced/consistent/situationally-aware guys. I'm aiming to do my first race clinic at Spring Mountain in March!