Was a beautiful day in pittsburgh today, sunny, warm, coulnd't have been better weather for an autocross. The course was a fast double-layered oval (think of the CBS logo, kinda), with a finish about 20 feet from the metal guardrail we put up to protect the playground that's near our lot. On his first run, a fella in an 300ZX TT (with the all-wheel steering system) came through the finish hot, was aimed at the timer, and in his avoidance lost it and plunged into the guardrail at about 25-30 MPH, absolutely square head on. I was about to run, and was out of sight behind a trailer, but i saw him go out of my field of vision right before the squeal-crash. Airbag deployed, the nose of the car went under the guardrail, the hood crumpled as it should....driver was OK, his full-faced helmet prevented any airbag injury (something to think about for us open-faced guys), he may have broken his arm durign the airbag deployment, that remained to be seen. I was very impressed with the club's members, everyone was level headed and supportive, doing whatever they could to keep the non-member spectators away from the scene, and saying what little we could to ease the shock. I think the driver will be back, he's a good driver who was subject to a bad set of events (indeed moments before i had been joking with him about the AWS system, which makes the car very tail happy when you don't want it to be. The event went on in abbreviated form after a change of course to slow the finish, we finished quite late as far as things usually go. Race wise, i had a pretty bad day, didn't get one clean run in...but the crash of a colleague makes you realize that not winning does not constitue a bad day, being safe and having fun are top priority. As the season winds down in most parts of the country, everyone stay safe, just thought i'd share this with you.

 

very cool (not the accident) but the fact he is pretty much ok, and people werent panicking

the worst autoX incident i saw was a 300zx(i THINK), went off course and down a hill into marshy area, kinda like shrubs and bushes.....if i remember correct he is ok.....went down at i forget how many MPH....but it was due to brake failure

 

Hrm, sounds like the 3Z won't be on any of my shopping lists anytime soon. I missed seeing the accident by about 5 feet (i was behind that trailer), i'm not sure if i would have liked to or not...to be perfectly honest, i was a little bit timid on my first run, it's hard not to be...here's hoping he gets back in the saddle!

 

Ricehornet-
you mean the guy in the red 300? In may or whenever it was in rochester? That scared the crap out of me, I was in the next heat and it was my first time at an autocross. It was good to see he was ok, but it scared me pretty bad. Needless to say, the first run was my worst time.
-McLean

 

Our events host in a huge public auditorium parking lot with light poles per 100 feet I think. Although sometimes the layout come close to the poles, but usually not very dangerous turns. Lots of Miatas go tail happy and for several times got the station guys to jump out of their ways.
The worst one that occured was with a M3 trying to correct from an oversteer and try to get en route on the course. Big Mistake, he slammed the car into a light pole nearly cutting his car in half! No question, the car was totaled and the driver kneel down beside the wreckage with hands over his head for about 2 hours. Sad thing to see.........when the car is out of control, just stop the damn thing before anyone gets hurt. There is always the next run.


[Modified by nEoMuGen, 6:01 AM 10/24/2001]

 

"In a spin, both pedals in."