Short-Throw

Come on, let the embarrassments make way!

Two short stories:

Mike

clubracer6

About 6 years ago at a Spec Miata race at Road America, I qualified 4th and felt I had a good chance for a top 3 finish in Sunday's race. Was camping across the street at Plymouth Rock and after the morning session, I drove my car over to the camp grounds to hang out with the fam. Had some lunch, did some canoeing and relaxed before the race. About an hour before grid, I drove back over to RA and I crossed the old bridge, my race group was going underneath me headed to 14 to take the green flag that lap. My heart sunk - while I was in my car, I did not have any of my gear on. I had all this family and friends up to watch the race, so it was pretty embarrasing. I had the time wrong, because I had been looking at Saturday's schedule while at the camp ground.

The next race was at Blackhawk and my fellow SM pilots presented me with a big brass alarm clock at the drivers meeting... I still haven't lived that one down...

wtknght1

Even after all these races and such, you'd think that by now I'd have it all down pat...but no. I think it was 2 years ago at Sebring...it was raining, so I waited until the last minute to put on my racing boots...I thought. I knew there was something wrong when I went into my first braking zone and the heel-toe shift didn't seem quite right, so I just adjusted and still won the race. As I was doing the cool down lap, I happened to look down and noticed that I had left my sneakers on instead of changing into the actual racing boots! :o

63Corvette

Mike there is no way in Hell that I would share my track embarrassments with the forum members. My family and friends who know already beat me up enough without letting the whole world know

L98Terror

Couple come to mind

* I was instructing and I forgot about my student and at the last minute was like oh **** and was sprinting across the grid to meet him before going on track and ended up pulling a ham string and could barely walk the rest of the weekend, it hurt like a mother to shift the race car.

* At my first Nationals in 2007 we were partying a little hard one night and someone thought it was a good idea to drink the tequila straight from the bottle (Erotica), anyway I was so hung over the next morning I was actually throwing up a little in my mouth as I went out for the last few TT sessions. (BTW set a new track record and won my frist National Championship in TTA)

* I took my friend SM out for a ride (When I was very new at this) and he was behind me in a students car, I was at lime rock and came over the hill at full blast and I crested the hill to see a car right in front of me (not sure if he over slowed for the hill, got out of wack or what) and I tapped the brakes and the car was unloaded and I locked all 4 tires, my buddy crested the hill about 10 seconds after me to a hugh cloud of smoke. He turned to his student and commented that, that was probably me duh!!! At least I avoided contact.

* I won't mention the times I forgot to check pressures (gone out with 9 lbs), forgot to fill the tank(and ran out of gas), stop paying attention on a cool down lap and almost wrecked, ect ect

95jersey

Because of heat, I often leave my face visor open and use sunglasses to protect my eyes. I use to do this on my motorcycle all the time. We'll I looked and looked EVERYWHERE for my sunglasses, was 10 minutes late to my session trying to find them only to realize I was actually wearing them on my face.

Talk about being a complete @ss.

spazegun2213

I was helping a friend learn a new track to him (summit Shenandoah) and I had been there a LOT in a buddies e36 m3. My friend also had an e36 m3, but with an autoX setup on it. I tell him that he can go flat from the carousel to the top of the hill, left wheels over the curb and HARD on the brakes before turning into the corkscrew. That was my line though there, and I caught everyone, it was great.

He is lapping and cant seem to do it so he pulls in and we swap. in 3 laps I'm 80% throttle though there, and I look over and say next lap I'll go flat. Sure enough the next lap we ROCKET though there and as soon as the left tires hit that curb under WOT the car starts to rotate... I ended up mowing summits lawn with his nice m3. As we sat there, I look at him and say "you are right, and I think I'm done now"


-----------------------

GT Live in 2009, i think it was?? I was there with PTUNING and we were running the scion. The car was having problems all weekend, meaning that I'd go out for a test lap, and have to come back in and we'd have to fix something missing the rest of the test session. At last we gridded up for the time trail session dead last *sigh* because the car never made it to qualifying. So I'm sitting there ready to go, and the let us out. As I come around for my flyer, I'm feeling good, THIS is going to be my lap. By the time the car is though southbend, its acting a really funny... cutting out, and not making power. I look at all the gauges going down the back straight and everything looks good, fuel pressure, oil pressure, boost, temps, everything and the car is pulling strong. I hit 17, and the car nearly dies... WTF! though hog pen it does die... we ran out of fuel... and coasted though the line for something like a 2:13? I pulled it off near turn one, and just started laughing... with all the rush, we'd forgotten to fuel the car.

Kubs

The first one that comes to mind is:

Lug nuts! I was changing from street to race tires and my dad was helping. Both of us thought the other had finished the last wheel (driver rear) and it came off on the warm up lap.

Same day I was also leaking oil and after finding and fixing the leak I left a wrench under the hood and it came out mid corner. I ran it over with the rear tire which caused me to spin. A buddy of mine was following me and he said he saw it come out and then the rear end of my car just snapped around. He had helped me look for the oil leak and knew which tool I was using, but when he cam back in the pits he told a worker "I saw a 9/16" wrench on the track." They were impressed he knew the size.

L98Terror

and I was thinking of a story with fire envolved, but the rear tire coming off was a pretty good one...I remember that also

Jason

At the end of long hot day at Barber I tried to load my car into the trailer without hooking up the truck.

travisnd

Almost did that once... got the front tires to the ramps and stopped myself.

At RA last December when that guy Ed hit Jeff they almost unloaded his car off the flat bed into his trailer w/o hooking it up.


1. Replaced a fuel pump on a car with no gas:

My most embarrassing moment at the track was spending 2 hours running into town for a new fuel pump and replacing said fuel pump only to figure out the car was out of gas (no fuel gauge, thought I had plenty). I had missed a run session, expended plenty of curses, was dirty from rolling in the VIR gravel and had blown $100 on a spare fuel pump I didn't need


2. Broke a brake hose torqing a caliper bolt:

Years ago with my old Z06 I was swapping a rotor in a hurry and accidentally had the torque wrench pushing against the brake hose caliper fitting... well pushing on it to get the bolt to 125 ft/lbs I snapped it. Nobody had a spare, I had no spares, the part wasn't generic so no parts stores had it and no stealerships were open. Luckily my mother had a '99 vert at the time and they lived/live in Greensboro about an hour from VIR. I called it a day and went there and stole her OEM rubber brake hose and showed my dad how to replace. The next week he was able to get one from GM and install and bleed the system. I was able to salvage the weekend and run Sunday w/o issue. This was back when I was driving the car to the track with a tire trailer hitched up.... I had to fix the car just to get home!

CHJ In Virginia

Two years ago at VIR the rubber drivers door window seal molding came loose and started flapping in my peripheral vision in turn two. Very disturbing since it was flying around at a very rapid pace. I tried to grab it with my right hand and ended up spinning in turn 3. Lots of glue in there now - won't happen again !!

Kubs

The fire was a result of the oil leak mentioned. That one was due to a hole in the dipstick not my stupidity so I left it out.

0Randy@DRM

My hotel says it all.

VetteDrmr

One autocross we were in line ready for our laps when some timing glitch took us down for several minutes. Being summer in TX we climbed out and relaxed. I took off my helmet, set it down in the shade behind the driver's door, and chatted away.

Gridmaster motions to fire 'em up, so I hop in, start the camera, strap in, start her up, and...

<wait for it>

drove right over my helmet.

Fun thread!

Have a good one,
Mike

FASST LN

I’ve done 3 HPDEs.
The first was in the rain.
The next I broke my rear spring at the very end of the day and thought it was a fluke (but it made for a long 45 mile drive back home on just the shocks).
My 3rd DE I broke my rear spring on the last lap of the last session (these are ZO6 springs). It was then that it occurred to me that I only opened the cutouts at the end of the day when my instructor was finished talking with me. Apparently the open cutouts mixed with aggressive driving heats the rear spring to the point it fails and breaks.

The 2nd time this happened I had to jack the car up on the wonderful CMP sand to remove the spring because it was dragging. It looked like I was plowing the earth behind me. Some guy ran out and told me my adjustable suspension was too low in the back.

SLandstra_Z06

Loading my silver C5 Z06 onto my open trailer for the first time at night, I decided to turn on the headlights. It was as I was just about to the perfect spot toward the front of the trailer with my door open making sure I was centered on the trailer, that I heard the loud crunch. It turned out the steel angle of the tire rack across the front of the trailer was about 3/4 inch lower than the top of the pop-up headlights...

I was showing young Andrew Aquilante how to get around an autocross track fast. He was in my passenger seat. As we came around the last fast sweeper I decided to give it a little extra throttle to show-boat through the finish beam. Car got away from me and we were headed straight for the curb at the edge of the course. Andrew said, this is going to hurt... just before we drove over the curb. Broke the cradle, bent two right side CCW wheels, radiator support bent to heck, etc...

I was at an autocross with Frank Gonzalez in DC a number of years ago and we were rushing around to get a set of wheels and tires on the yellow C5 Z06. We got everything done and headed for our grid spot. Getting ready to run, someone leaned into my window and asked if we always ran the car with that tire set-up. I said yes, why? He pointed out that on the driver side we had 18 inch wheels and tires on the front and 17's on the rear. Passenger side was just the opposite. We sheepishly drove back to the trailer and switched the wheels around, missing the first runs.

I'm sure there are more stories to come... but that's it for now.

Steve

redtopz

^^^ Some good stories .

I'm pretty absent minded so I have a number of them . The worst was at my first race this year at Infineon in my ST2 car. I qualified pole position and was leading the race group onto the track behind the pace car when suddenly my car went into a serious limp mode and it felt like it was applying brakes even when I was pressing on the gas. With the pace car pulling away and cars bunching up behind me I became very anxious to say the least and was frantically trying to figure out what the problem was. My clutch was having issues so my first thought was it was related to the clutch. I pulled over and as all the cars in my group went by I tried turning off my engine and starting it again, but the problem came right back. I gradually worked my way all the way around the track and back into the pits baffled at what my car was doing. After the race ended, I was talking to another guy telling him what my problem was and he said "isn't there a way on the vettes to disable the traction control?". Right after he said that I knew what the problem was but I was too embarrassed to admit it so I just nodded with a dumb look on my face. I just forgot to push the TC button to disable active handling . On Sunday I went back out and won the race.

Oh, and yes I've backed my car out of my trailer when it was unhooked from my truck. And I've backed my car into my truck after swapping pads and forgetting to pump the brake pedal to regain pressure.

Loco Vette

Where did you catch the trailer?

Loco Vette

Nothing as good as what we have takled about so far but after a long racing hiatus I went to an HPDE. Spent all day running around thinking "this is cool, I remember this, I have it down" and for the last session the grid worker pointed out that I had been wearing shorts all day. Way to prove my nonrookie status!