calvinlc

Just thought I would share some of my videos shot out at High Plains Raceway (2.5 mile track near Byers, CO) in my '91 Z07. Car currently has the following mods: Wilwood GN3 calipers, Poly rear end rebuild, LT4 HotCam, MiniRam manifold, removed catalytics, Magnaflow catback exhaust. I am running NT05's 275's all the way around.

1. A couple of good laps around the full course without any traffic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBJ3...w&feature=plcp


2. Me chasing down a Porsche GT3 on the same day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijwoln0_9UY&feature=plcp


3. A video of a few laps of the North Course - a shorter configuration of 1.83 miles vs. 2.5 miles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFHl...Q&feature=plcp


4. A video piece from the same day running the North Course that is inside my friend Josh's Porsche Boxster S while I am the passenger. This is where he rolls the car coming out of turn 4 on the North Course. Wait for the pictures at the end of the video which show you how much damage was done looking at the outside of the car. See the comments for more details.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Syw3...Y&feature=plcp

sperkins

Ho - Lee - Crap.
Glad you guys are ok.

Olitho

The cabin held up OK.

I am glad you guys are not hurt.

calvinlc

Yeah, it was definitely a scary ride, that's for sure. I was very glad for my helmet.

moespeeds

That really sucks. You stopped right side up? That's gotta be hairy in a convertible!

l98tpi

Good videos except for the crash. Glad to hear you both were okay.

seebobgo

That sucks
It looks like he was going to save it.

froggy47

Glad you guys are ok. It looked like he was riding it out & I'm surprised it flipped, runoff looked rough but ok. Tire blow causing the flip?

0Todd TCE

Classic move to try and pull it back on the track too quickly eh? He'll learn to ride it out next time!

QUIKAG

Glad you guys are okay. I'd never be riding with that friend again. Huge beginner mistake pulling back on the track like that after two wheels off.

calvinlc

The runoff is basically xeriscaped Colorado ground which is hard as a rock with no rain. Very bumpy. In addition to that we were going downhill. The real kicker is that there is a small depression that then rises back up on the other side. When we skimmed over that depression the car dropped and then when the other side of the depression rises the drivers side caught that and became a pivot point. You just have to keep your velocity vector and your wheels parallel or else you run this risk. Of course with the bumpy terrain there is no steering once you are off track, so your best strategy is to use the track, even if you do a 360 on the track due to too much steering input, because you won't flip. Or you have to have no angular momentum when you leave the track. I have seen way too many Nascar races where as soon as the car gets sideways in grass, if it hits the slightest imperfection it starts to roll, so I was not unprepared when we started to roll. I also had a nagging inside me when we first got into the car that I was thinking about "What if the car rolled." Call it a nagging from the Holy Spirit, or a premonition, whichever you like, I personally am in the first camp; but in either case with thos two things combined as soon as we left the track the second time on the right side I hunkered down as best I could and held my head down preparing for what I was afraid was coming. When I got out of the car I instantly felt all muscles in my back and arms were sore due to straining to keep my head down with my arms.

This was a new car to him and he had just ridden in my car for about 8 laps which takes the corners about 5 mph faster. He was also coming from a Subaru to a Porsche - pretty huge difference from AWD to RWD on how to handle something like this - I used to track an Audi S4 before I bought the Vette, so I know what that transition is like Fortunately, I had owned more Camaros and Firebirds than I could count, but I think this may have been his first RWD car.

Needless to say, one of my projects for this winter is a rollbar in the Vette - which was already on the books even before the accident due to the fact that my next engine mod will take my max speed on this course up over 135.

Yes, we did land right-side up. We think we rolled 2 times. The woman behind us said we caught about 4 feet of air on the first rotation but couldn't see after that because of all the dirt thrown up, and I was spitting dirt out for the next few hours