Yesterday I was taking a dirt road to bypass a very jammed up section of the freeway (Labor day weekend traffic). Of course, though, there was nobody out there and I was messin' around a bit in my Eclipse. There was a couple of tight corners towards the end of the road before it rejoined the main road; a right, then a left immediately afterwards. I hand brake cornered through the first one, and tried to swap it around the other way for the left hander, but the thing just plowed. And, well, you can see the results! lol
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The stupid thing is that I didn't know the road. I've only been on it once before. Plus, I don't REALLY know how to drive quickly on dirt. I think we all mess around a bit, and I don't even think that there's anything wrong with that, but I was driving way above my abilities on dirt! Dirt has a way of humbling you rather quickly!
Within about 10 minutes, three or four cars had already stopped to help get me out. We couldn't just pull it out because the pinch weld was sitting on a big rock just behind the front tire. We had to dig out from under the rock to allow it to move, and then when they pulled the car I turned the wheel to make it climb up onto the rock. Otherwise the frame would've slid off of the rock and it would then just be resting on the front suspension member. It actually came out pretty smoothly once we figured out how to do it. Took about 20 minutes total.
I'll get under it today, but I looked it over pretty well on the side of the road, and from what I can tell there is no serious damage. It did blow the radiator, and that's $150 I didn't want to spend today, but that's the price of doing something stupid I guess. I called my dad and he helped me limp it home with a blown radiator (5 minute epoxy rules!) I showed him the same pictures on my phone while we were waiting for the epoxy to dry, and he sarcastically stated, "Oh, I never did anything like that when I was young!" lol I'm lucky that nothing was damaged worse than my ego. That's okay, though. Maybe my ego needed some damaging.
Mark D.