bosco022

While practicing for the ARRC at Road Atlanta, Bob Stretchs' throttle hung open resulting in his Howe Racing built Camaro being shortened just a bit.
The well engineered Howe chassis did its' job, folding up and using up the energy. Bob was transported to the hospital and later released, a bit banged up but OK. This excellent design, likely saved Bob's life.

BuckeyeZ06

The motor and transmission are still attached; the chassis design has those pieces sliding under the car in a crash like this. Chaz Howe's team did a good job designing and building these cars.

The car is already at Howe's shop in Michigan to be inspected so they can learn how to make the design even safer. Seeing this wreckage also reminds everyone how important each step of the assembly process is...every weld, every nut and bolt.

RedLS1GTO

Holy crap.

Where did he hit? Back stretch??

BuckeyeZ06

Turn 6.

RedLS1GTO

Thanks

Any other pictures or details? Do you know what type of seat/neck restraint he was using? As an engineer (and a very soon to be Howe chassis owner) I am very interested on how exactly the chassis reacted to an impact like that.

bosco022

It was on a wet track, car was shod with Hoosier rains.

I heard the car skipped through the gravel trap like a flat stone across a lake. Drove through the tire wall and impacted concrete. Cannot verify this...but is what I heard. Dave may have more info.

FASTFATBOY

Turn 6, he went off about 130 mph? WOW, good chassis.

Han Solo

Always glad to hear the driver is okay from a crash like this.

I would like to see more pictures of where the engine and trans ended up on this. Doesn't look like the car is sitting high enough for them to still be with the car if they went under it.

travisnd

No time to shut off the ignition? I had the pedal stick on a car I was testing in the uphill esses at VIR. The switch panel was driver left and easy to reach. I was able to slap the fuel pump and ignition switches to shut the car down. Scariest moment I've ever had on track.

bosco022

The engine and tranny are still in the car...engine down low, shoved up under the cowl. The tranny looked to be moved back at least 18".

Black89Z51

I was on track when this happened. Glad the driver was ok. My friend and I watched the car get pulled out of the tires. We were shocked at the damage on the front, as neither of us saw it happen and didn't know the extent of speed that he hit the wall.

We looked at the car later, noting that the engine/trans were pushed back about 8" and the transmission was also pushed down. All you could see was the shifter ball barely flush with the top of the transmission tunnel at the very back of the slot for the shifter. The trans tunnel by the accelerator pedal definitely hit him in the leg/ankle as it buckled inwards and there was a decent gap in the metalwork.

He did have Hoosier rain tires on. He tried to make the turn, went off inside of the turn, across the track, through the gravel trap, the tire wall and displaced a couple concrete barriers. It had just stopped raining when we went on track. The track was still wet (no standing water) and I'm sure that red clay did almost nothing to stop the car. The session was immediately black flagged.

I doubt he had time to shut off the ignition as T6 isn't a very slow turn. I wasn't hitting the brakes until about 150 ft.

Here are some pics I took with my phone.

Crepitus

Wow It wasn't to long ago that would have been impossible to survive. The cage and body from the fire wall back is amazingly straight. I would like to see more of that chassis before and after the wreck.

fatbillybob

Is the pedal box compromised? It sort of looks like it and that would mean the steering column shifted too? If so I would want a better design to prevent that. But maybe that is not possible at those speeds. I would love to be a fly on the wall to see how the engineers would redesign the car for the future. I wonder if they have G data as to how big that hit was. A 45mph delta is 50g's!

RedLS1GTO

Speaking of the Howe chassis... I came across this the other day and thought it was interesting.

http://www.c-too.com/allstars/achete...eSAE-Paper.pdf

Crepitus

A good read, Thanks. I noticed that the wrecked car has a revised vent bar.

RX-Ben

I thought all those circle trackish cars had gas pedals with the bar that allowed you to pull back the pedal?
This happened to a friend at VIR, in a similar car (that he was borrowing!), but he hit the kill switch to avert disaster.

Crepitus

I understand the car went to Howe's shop. they will prepare a report for Trans Am. I would like to read this if it becomes available.

drivinhard

When you drive RA, 10a initially comes across as the "scary" area because it's the highest speed. In reality, there's a ton of run off and wall impacts there are at least in the direction of travel of the car, ie, no horrible angles.

When you INSTRUCT at RA and you aren't AS focused on the track surface, you quickly realize T1 and T6 are the scary zones. Approach speeds are very high in both (I have seen 142+ in my car in TTA trim heading into T1), and there is not very much pea gravel before you are in concrete head on. See Brad Keselowski for T1 example of that. "Skipping like as stone" is exactly what you would do in T1 as it's downhill, and the car just doesn't have the attitude, or time, to dig in and slow. You're going to hit hard. Same for T6, although the speeds are a bit lower. But obviously from the pics, still going to be a nasty hit.

Glad all is well