sjasmund

At the risk of hearing all kinds of hind sighted opinions on what I should have done, I’m posting this video of a crash I had at the 6/9 race weekend at Waterford. If you’ve road raced or driven on a track, you know how quickly things can go very wrong.

My last race weekend, at Waterford Hills, ended shortly after getting started. The car had way too much understeer in qualifying so I qualified a disappointing fourth behind Joe Moser, Dave Beyersdorf and Bob Moser. On the first lap of the race, Bob lost control of his car going through Big Bend. Big Bend is a fourth gear, wide-open corner leading onto the back straight.

When Bob got off the track I expected him to do what everyone else does when you go off there… get the car straight and ride it out until you can ease back on the track. I’m not sure whether the car was already too far gone when he got on the grass or if he tried to jerk it back to the pavement instead of riding it out, but the car spun back toward the track.

When I saw him coming back toward he track, I saw that he was at opposite lock steering into the slide. From being in this position several other times, including when Joe had spun in front of me a couple weeks earlier, I made the assumption that he’d snap and spin back to the left as soon as he hit the pavement. I had a 50/50 chance and I picked “right”. As it ended up, right was wrong. He didn’t snap back, he kept coming across the track. By that time, I had very little time and even less track to do anything else.

As you can (sorta) see in the video, the impact was big. Aside from being sore, both drivers were fine. Both CRX’s were not.


www.kineticracing.com/incar/0609crash.m1v (3.1MB)

Scott

'89 ITA CRX Si (racecar - still at the body shop)
'91 ZC CRX Si (street car - scared it might be drafted into active duty)



[Modified by sjasmund, 7:37 PM 6/18/2001]

Chris

OUCH!

Thanks for the vid...too bad for the cars. Most important is you are all OK.

Take care and good luck

Hracer

I'm really sorry to hear that your car got involved, too. I did hear that R. Moser lost a car at the last race (news spreads fast...), but I was not sure who else was involved. It is too bad it was you. It's so frustrating not being able to do anything about it and get hurt by someone else's mistakes when you, yourself didn't do anything wrong.

So what's the verdict on the car? Can the frame be bent back? What are your plans? Wish you luck.

Catch 22

He started countersteering when the left side tires left the asphalt. It looks like he tried to hold it straight but couldn't, once he hit the grass it was all over.

No second guessing here. You had to pick a spot which was exactly what you did. Unfortunately it was the wrong one.

Just glad both of you are OK.
Any idea of your speed when you hit him? I'm assuming you had to stay on the gas through most of that sequence in order to get yourself through the turn without loosing the rear end. A really bad position to be in.

sjasmund

Alex,

I haven't heard the verdict on Bob's car. From what Joey said, it didn't look good.

Mine was pretty bad too but salvagable. The damage was primarily on the left front and all the way down the left side. The LF wheel was pushed back a ways. The lower subframe was pushed back into the oil pan. The firewall was tweaked and the pedals were crooked.

It's been at the body shop for a week and a half now. They started pulling on it and declared they could make it as good as it was. It'll cost me a fortune but I really didn't want to start with a new shell again. I should still make the 6/30 race at Mid-O.

Scott

sjasmund

RoadRacer... my data aquisition system showed a wheelspeed of 88.8mph at the point of impact. The G's spiked at -6 but I'm not sure if that's actual or just the limit of the acclerometer since it's not a "black box" crash recorder. It was a hard hit and has me considering a HANS. My neck was pretty sore for a couple of days.

Yes, going through the corner, the car is really on edge. Especially on the first lap when the tires still aren't fully up to temperature. It's not someplace that you can really lift or brake.

Scott

Snapspinnr

Ouch !!! Sorry about the car but I am glad that your ok. I've watched it about 10 times and it still makes me wince right at that moment when you can tell the impact is going to happen.

I didn't see anyway you could have avoided it especially since there was probably a bunch of eager drivers right behind you.

Thanks for posting it .