There is no longer any doubt: I can be a real idiot some times. I was taking a friend of mine for a quick cruise in the 'vette yesterday, and as we pulled out of the parking lot making a right turn on to an empty road I hit the gas. As we the tail broke loose and swung to the left, I over corrected, and it swung back, then I overcorrected further and it went back again. Eventually I landed in the grass on the left side of the street. I hit the curb at almost a perfect 90 degree angle. I was right between a small pole and a HUGE tree (rather lucky). We were only going all of 30 mph, so I don't think any humans were in imminent danger, but it was still rather stupid.

The front bumper skin is cracked. The sin pushed back on the wheel well and tore it some too. I think I also may have bent the skid pate when I hit the curb too, because something still doesn't look right. It's going to Danny Popp this morning.

I called Danny right after it happend, and he reminded me of the Spider Man movie: "with great power comes great responsibility."

Hopefully this isn't too expensive...

Lessons learned:
1. Don't try to impress your friends.
2. The Corvette's capabilities exceed my current driving capabilities.
3. I'm an idiot.
4. I need to have someone smarter than me teach me to drive properly in a safe and controlled environment.
5. Leave traction control on, unless you really do know what you're doing.
6. If you don't leave traction control on, don't keep the pedal on the floor at the first sign of fish tailing.
7. Save such driving for an appropriate location (not the street!).
8. Cleaning, vacuuming, and doing some laundry before the wife gets home reduces her ire. If there's time, dinner is a plus too.

Take care,
Brett

 

And, leave active handling on if you feel the need to turn off traction control.

 

Excellent point for those with active handling. This particular C5 does not have active handling. If it did, I probably wouldn't be pulling grass out of the bumper.

 

Not too much left to say,you've pretty much got it all covererd in the "Lessons Learned" portion of your post.
Hitting that curb may have done more damage than what is immediately obvious,so you may be a genuine "Suzy Homemaker" before this is over.

Do you do windows?

 

Repeat #3 at least 5 times!

We all make mistakes from time to time. Sounds like the damage may not be too serious. You were lucky.

 

Luckily it was a very short curb, just a few inches. I think most of the damage was from hitting the dirt/grass behind it. The grass had a pretty good slope.

I'll be cleaning the gutters today (which was actually planned prior to the incident), and I'll probably get the windows while I have the ladders and hose out.

 

Here's my stupid moment 3ft up a tree.

 

Sorry for the damage to your car, but at least you learned valuable lessons from this incident. Hope you can get it repaired quickly and not too much of a hit to the wallet.

 

It sounds like you've learned an important message. Good luck with the repairs. In racing they would say that you ran out of talent.

 

Been there, done that.Broke a wheel, got it replaced before the wife ever noticed.

 

....plenty of folks who have done that. I almost did that when my active handling was acting up (disconnecting and reconnecting my EBCM connectors solved that "no ground" issue). I was entering an on ramp, hit the gas and spun up to the edge of a hill that led down to the highway. A bit less braking and I would've been T-boned in the middle of three lanes.

 

I let a friend drive my Camaro a week ago and he did the exact same thing... At least there was no curb to tear up the botom of the car and the only damage was the front facia.

It's in the shop getting a new facia now... $1190

It's an expensive lesson to learn, but I can't say I've never made the same mistake myself.

When driving my Corvette I always leave the TC and AH turned on. I'm not a talented driver and it's entirely possible I might make a mistake or do something stupid that requires the car to step in and save my ***. If I tell the Corvette to do something dumb, it's going to tell me "NO!"

The Camaro... well, it's a 94 and back then there was no TC or AH. If the Camaro is told to do something dumb.... It's going to do it.

I hope your car is able to be fixed without major headache.

 

How old are your rear tires and what was the temperature?

I had a similar incident happen last year, luckily without doing any damage, that I attribute to old, hard tires on cold pavement. While leaving a parking lot (on a club cruise with lots of witnesses unfortunately) I crossed the center median and the rear end immediately went sideways. I was able to keep the car in the center of the street and we stopped in the center turn-lane, 90 deg. to traffic. Needless to say the tires were replaced the next weekend and I am much more careful in temperatures under 70.

 

At least I'm in good company. That's for the support y'all.

They're still pretty soft and grippy, but they weren't warm, so I'm sure that didn't help any. It was just over 60F outside. Pressure is just above 30 psi on all four corners.

 

Just got back from Danny Popp. Looks like it won't be all that bad. He put it up on a lift and we looked at the underside. The skid plate / lower radiator support is bent, so he hit that with a dead blow a few times. There's a crack in the bumper cover that we're going to repair until I find a bumper cover in the parts section of the forum, and the wheel well is fixable. Pics to follow soon.

 

View of the car from the front. I removed the lower piece of plastic on the left side to get a better look at the damage. Not too bad from here.



Here you can see the crack in the bumper skin as well as the dirt on the skid. It was crooked this before Danny beat it with a hammer.



Crack in the fender well:



Cracked upper radiator cover. Look near the bolt that holds the cover to the car. It's about dead center in the photo.



All in all not too bad. Could've been a lot worse as some of you have reminded me.

Take care,
Brett

 

Glad you are ok and you were lucky with the minor damage

 

I did something similar in my C3 years ago trying to impress an ex girlfriend who was in her C3. Over correct left, then right, then left into two parked cars. Lesson learned years ago.

 

If you want to learn how to drive your car in a more controlled environment with good instructors in the car... check out Nasa Great Lakes region as they have a great HPDE program that will teach you alot on car control. You already know one of the best there is (Mr. Popp) so come out see it for yourself.

 

and glad the OP is okay