JohnD60

I had a big off this past weekend at the Hallet NASA Texas event. I was right in front of their slow motion video cameraman. I'm sure all of you will appreicate this video.

This was during the second TT session on Saturday. I'm heading into the turn they call "the bitch". The name is fitting.......

Before you clink on the video please understand that I am OK. All the safety equipment inside and outside the car worked perfectly. In addition, although the car was damaged, we were able to put it back together and I was back on track that afternoon.

http://www.vimeo.com/12561713

I have to compliment the entire Hallet crew. Not only did their "air fence" save me and the car, the safety crew seemed to get to me before I stopped moving, and the race shop offered to stay open late to help with the repairs.

After you catch your breath we can talk about what I did wrong!

John

RX-Ben

Wow, great vid of what happens when you steer/have too much yaw/car isn't "settled" w/o having rear grip due to elevation change (which is what I assume happened before you got sideways). I think your only chance of a save in this situation before the elevation change.

Strong cars. Great great fence design.

froggy47

Thanks for the post & glad u r ok.

What is your analysis on how the loss of control happened?

Armycop

I'm like "holeeee****tt" as soon as the rear end starts coming around! Dayum! Glad you're okay. My head/neck would hurt bad after the landing you had.

froggy47

Thanks for the post & glad u r ok.

What is your analysis on how the loss of control happened? Speeds, elevation chg, etc.

It does not look like any extraordinary driver error happened.

T/C on/off?

Tires?

Track dry?

Traffic ahead/try for a pass?

longdaddy

were you feeling a little "pressured" by the car behind? the root cause of most incidents is usually going on in our brains which knocks us off usual routines/reactions... in my experience anyway.

you need better shocks if you want to hop the curbing like that it is very educational to see suspension work and failing to recover from initial upset coming off the curbing - which shock are you running? it looked like what my OEM '03 one would do before I went to updated '04 one.

you should be proud of very nice and controlled inputs recovering the car - you almost had it just before the driver side went off track.

again, thanks for the video, I wish I could have someone record my suspension travel in a slow motion, it is amazing to see how it works (or fails to work :P)

in a normal situation, I would say that it was still salvageable with 2 wheels off by straightening the front wheels (it seemed you were trying to do that as well) and driving off, but that dip in the grass is nasty - one of those things that probably claimed a few cars...

MJM

Glad you are ok.

I think you did a good job. No panic, counter steering, keeping your foot in it to keep the car balanced. It just looks like it got away from you in a bad spot.

Goes to show you that safety equipment is always important and should be encouraged.

sleeper02Z06

First and foremost you are ok, that is the most important thing. With that I will throw out something simple to chew on even though I don't know that section of that track. I can't tell where you should be going or where you should end up based on the vid but it does seem to me that towards the end of the slide countersteer you were too far left which is obviously why you ended up going off. The track falling off seems to be what screwed you more than anything else. Forget all the technical stuff about whether your suspension worked or didn't, where you should have been, what you did or didn't do wrong or right, etc etc. I think the one thing that may have saved you would have been faster hands, ie, faster recovery from the initial slide. Not catching it early pointed you track left and it just looks like a bad spot to go off on the left! You tried though man, you tried. Just looks like a crap place to go off.

With all that said even though it feels like a bad thing now, I think you will look at that years from now and say "That is the COOLEST clip of video I have!!" What an awesome clip. I have found over the years some of my best video and pictures are the shots of me screwing up!!

Short-Throw

Like mentioned by everyone above, glad you're ok.

I agree with Joe (Sleeper) that faster hands were needed immediately. The quicker the initial correction, the lesser the yaw. It's always easier being a Monday morning quarterback but it appears you also didn't have enough counter-steer dialed in before you went off. Trying to learn going forward, do you remember your action once you went off track? Did you try to steer it back on too quickly, did you hit the brakes at all -- or were you simply a passenger at that point? One of the hardest things to do is drive a car off track at speed and make as little as input as possible for as long as possible. Maybe you never had the option being it's off camber?

Thanks for sharing and helping us continually learn!


Mike

2000BSME

gaw dam! That is a great video, it's good that you and the car are alright. What it looked like happened to me is that you tried to pinch it to the left too hard when the momentum of the car wanted to go right. Front tires had grip, rear tires slid out. You put too much steering input into the situation.

Now let me go read everyone else's comments and see what they think.

longdaddy

i don't know if i agree with comments about failure to apply "fast hands" - you can see correction angle in the front wheels as soon as the car comes off the curb - pause at 0.07 to see what I mean.

would it have been possible to keep adjusting the correction with the suspension that kept bouncing like that during the slide? maybe for some here, but probably not for me.

John Shiels

Nice vid to bad you have it to show. Glad all is well with you. How bad is the car?

Olitho

I agree.

I have been off like that a hundred times. I am sure you have spun a bunch of times, too. This time you were unfortunate enough to do it in a spot with an embankment sloping down to the barrier.

It does and will make for a cool video for years to come.

froggy47

I watched it again a few times & the only feedback I can add is around :14 to :16 seconds in it looks like your hands are very low on the wheel and the left hand is off & then grabbing back on to the wheel.

When I instruct autox the hand position where you have the most control & best chance to save a car is between 9-3 up to 10-2. I tape the wheel just above the thumbs on both sides as a reminder to keep the hands there.

The Vette close in your mirrors may have got into your head also.

SIK02SS

Wow, talk about a dramatic impact! Really glad you came out fine and it's nice to hear the car is fixable (and you got back on track as fast as you did!)

I agree with Joe, Mike, and Oli. I've had a similar incident in my Formula Ford, but instead of going airborne and hitting a wall, the guy behind me went wheel : wheel and went airborne; I was just stuck watching him coming and hitting me. Same thing for me, too slow of hands that time. I thought it was a "normal slide" so I reacted lazily (if you've ever driven a momentum car around a track you understand this), and next thing I knew I was backwards facing 2nd place who had no where to go but into me ("chris ronson crash" on vimeo). "Pinching" the corner with steering when there's an elevation change can get you into a world of hurt :\

2000BSME

this dude 'pinched' it right when the track was pushing him to the left coming up out of the carousel at Barber. It was his first time at that track and he flew right by me at breakneck speed first thing on Saturday morning. I actually caught the whole thing on video, kinda. My rearview mirror was blocking the majority of the action and all the video shows is parts flying out of the picture. He didn't fare nearly as well as this threadstarter. His car was totaled. The rear caty-corner is all smashed up too, and the frame was bent. I estimate his speed to be nearly 100 coming up over the elevation change when he went off in the grass and hit the armco. He said the gt3 was only a few months old.

Short-Throw

Quicker hands are absolutely the key here but also......

The correction angle does not have enough degrees dialed in to the right. This also could have resulted in not looking where one is needed to go, but where one is going. Looking ahead to the 12-13 second mark, you can see the left hand is still on the left side of the wheel. Sometimes even hand over hand action is required. We teach this in our police training courses at Autobahn. Most officers understand quick hand action is needed, but many do not dial in enough initial steering on the onset of the slide.


Again, looking at the clip and not experiencing the actual conditions make our assessments educated guesstimates at best.

johninar

glad you are okay. The Bitch is appropriately named. It is my favorite section of the track, but it does gather up a few cars. I hope the car is okay, what damage? I showed that clip to my wife, that was a mistake. I'm guessing an alignment is in your future.

Again, glad you are okay. That is one scary video. Clyde (track photographer) does seem to be at the right place at the right time!

Short-Throw

John Shiels

I thought it might go over at first