I just did a recent and archived search here with tons of discussion on most recent crashes or fatal crashes we've all probably been witness to once in our lives.

My question is inspired by this post: https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=1341472

-How long ago did you start racing wheel to wheel or partcipating in HPDE?
-How long until you had your first crash?
-What was the scenario? Damage? Pics?

I've done only HPDEs at this point and already I have seen some interesting flips and rolls....

But at the same time I have met some wheel to wheelers who have had nothing more than a few rubs and spins. Just wanted to see if anybody here decided that after a certain crash or incident, it kinda shook you up enough that you didn't want to get back into the saddle....

Here's a few of what I've seen at Pacific Raceways - at the time Seattle International Raceway.

Clipping a curb at 5A caused this R get outta balance and to go up the dirt embankment right before 5B and land on its roof. Driver unhurt.

Apparently way too much speed outta 7 and ended up dropping 2 wheels in the dirt, then it became 4 wheels....then it went sideways....and that was all she wrote going into a barrel roll of sorts....ended up resting on its roof in the bushes.... Scary for the 10 seconds or so when we didn't see any movement....Driver unhurt in the end.

Thanks to vso for hosting the pics

edit: pix pulled


Modified by RagingAngel at 12:37 AM 8/18/2005

 

The first time I was ever on track was May of '98 at a HPDE in my old GSR. My first ever W2W race was then August of '00 in my first ITC '85 Civic. In June of '01 I was at Nelson Ledges and dropped my right side tires off the inside of turn 2 (turned in too early). This upset the car very badly (there was a huge hole at the apex) so the car scooted outwards causing me to run out of room on the exit. left tires went off, quickly followed by the rest of the tires. I ended up hitting the tire barrier at about a 45 degree angle at about 60mph. The tirewalls there sucked at the time so the car just promptly climbed up the tire wall and went quite airborn. It launched up in the air and slammed down on the roof.

Unfortunately my harness came undone during the wreck and as the car hit on it's roof, so did my head. I never lost conciousness but after the car stopped moving, I reached down to undo my harness (I was still in the seat) and not only could I not feel my harness, I couldn't feel anything from my chest down, period. Talk about freaking out. I tried staying calm and then about 30 seconds later I started feeling the little hole that was now in my shin - greatest pain I've ever felt. To make this shorter, I got a ride to the hospital, x-rays, CAT scan, and an MRI to find that I had a compressive fracture in my C7 vertebre. So I'm now the proud owner of a couple of fused together vertebre and a titanium plate and screws in my neck.

I was in the hospital for 4 days, a neck brace for 8 weeks, and under strict doctors orders for 6 months. About 11 months after the accident I was back in a racecar again. That was not an easy decision, believe me. It took me most of '02 to get back up to speed and the entire thing made me a much better driver in the end.

This is how I learned that "young, fast, stupid, and a feeling of invincibility" isn't the greatest combination. You have to have fear, you have to.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Phat-S from 3/8/2004 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
Don't have much on details, I would think my recollection isn't exact but from combining what I recall w/ accounts from people watching; I got loose exiting T1, countered, thought I had it and the rear continued on to the right. Out of track, I was rotating right, sliding leftward off track and left the track unstraight. I slowly rotated through the grass while (what seemed to be) parallel to the wall (this took a long time - was trying to get the car to restart for most of this). At some point the car has done roughly 270 degree turn and I think I am going to hit but then nothing ... then a huge hit d. side against the wall. Pop off my Isaac and harnesses, can't find a CW (no mirrors left) and grab my fire bottle (go ahead laugh =D) and then see a CW coming up from the outside wall. Get out, wait for him to take off for another incident, take off my helmet and spit out blood from my tongue bite (didn't want to scare the crap out of him as I didn't know if my balaclava was bloody).

Ended up w/ a bone bruise on my left arm (door bar), surface bruise on my inner right thigh, cut up the tip of my tongue (its not that bad actually - looks like one bite down, one up), strained my right hand middle finger (no clue when or how). No neck pain to this point, minor soreness in my lower left shoulder blade last night but not today. Basically, hugely grateful for the seat (Momo Cup GT), the Isaac Device and SFI padding where my arm hit.

Easier to list what is still intact than what's broken I'd think. I think the right side suspension is fine as are the right side wheels. The motor internals are hopefully all fine. Fire bottle is still good. Right side tires are good, lefts *might* be good. Think the kill switch is still intact. The battery, if it survived a trip through the engine bay is good. Wipers are good. The hatch glass is good. John's Air Dam survived HAHAHHA! Well, until we loaded it on the trailer . The front core support may be ok. The gagues are fine. Me, my helmet, my restraints (going to send the Isaac in for analysis but my cursory check seemed like they were still good), drivers suit still clean and perhaps my seat is still good. I think that's it aside from some wiring and other probably the oil cooler, remote filter mount and lines.

Basically just some great lessons learned with very little serious consequence. Very glad I had what I had on the car and me and consider myself a dufus but fortunate and much more educated. Hell, we wanted to build a new tub anyway so this just moves up the time frame. Most of all, I was very glad to have such great people there around me, the Pucketts, the Muresans, the OPM guys, Scott, Blake and a list of others.

Too bad I am on generator power right now as I have been w/out power since 7:30 last night Now THAT's irritating
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Point blank, you do this stuff long enough, you will come out on the unfortunate side of things, typically hitting a wall or hurting the vehicle is only a few inches away from a typical save - its just in the luck of how things conspire.


Might I say that your post and ahem, "curiosity," seems morbid at best but I understand the concern. I had the same when I started. You probably can just ask for folks to volunteer the information rather than showing pics of other peoples accidents. But I do hope that this sort of "cars gone wild" thread keeps to incidents of car's people own, not pics that they took at the track. Why not remove the other people's wreck stuff from your post and let folks bring their own stories and images to this if they chose to?

 

I'm in year 11 (started DEing in '94) of being on track and year 4 of W2W racing and I've yet to hit anything hard enough to cause any damage bayond some scratches. I'm not sure if thats luck or skill or both, but I do realize, rather reluctantly, that I'm "due" to hit something.
I've actually only had 3 offs that weren't intentional in the last 2 years and all of those were at the same track. Roebling... Roebling owns me. This is a big reason that I've decided to not go back there for a while. I've reached the point where the track is frustrating me, I'm pushing my luck, and I've had a couple of "That was almost the big one" incidents there.

In the end, I don't know how I've managed to stay out of trouble for so long, but I'll take it.

And to Adam's point... Being a crash watcher is morbid and socially unacceptable in forums like this. Just say no.
Last weekend at Road Atlanta the two Chris' and I were sitting in the AC'd comfort of my truck and couldn't see a portion of the track. But we knew someone had hit a tire wall because a group of people ran in that direction with their cameras up to their faces.
Bunch of fuggin *********.

 

Started HPDE in 98 and racing in 04. I have done about 30 weekends total and have only hit anything hard 2 times. Both at Road Atlanta.

First time was my 3rd ever HPDE and 1st at RA. It was raining and I got up on the painted curb a bit at the turn in of the famouns RA turn 12. Lost it and hit the inside wall. Suprisingly it didn't bang up the car as bad as I thought, but still cost $5k in repairs.

Feb of this year I lost the car in the breaking zone of turn 1 when I went a little too far left and locked up the front left in the marbles/dirt. Pushed a littled too hard the first weekend w/o ABS. Doh. $200 fixed that one. Oh and now I can't get myself to push harder in the turn 1 breaking zone. Gotta work on that .... w/o wrecking ...

 

Belle Chere street autocross, 1998 or so. Integra still street driven. I'm about 5 back on the grid and on BFG R-1s. It starts to rain. I go into the first slalom, the car steps around, and by the time I'd gathered it up, I'd jumped a rather high curb. Radiator core support still bent to this day.

Then in March or so of this year I locked up the brakes trying an impossible move during qualifying and drove right into the side of the RE.

 

I've been HPDEing for about 3 years, have had two offs but didn't hit anything. The threat of that is why I don't track a $20,000+ car anymore though.

 

I Autox and did drivers' ed for 2 years before I began racing. I am now in my second year of racing. I have a had a few signifigant offs but nothing too damaging. My biggest near miss was last November @ summit Point. I overcooked turn 3 and lost it into the woods. Very luckily the car and myself were not damaged (good in car video). VERY LUCKY. I have been fortunate so far but I see guys have damaged cars nearly every weekend(I did 53 days at the track last year). It has been my opinion that if you cant afford to walk away and write off the car you should not take it onto the track.

 

HPDE for about 2 years just had first off track at VIR kissed the guardrail no body damage just paint transfer.

 

More than a few of us were amazed at this: https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=1341472.

If I had to nominate someone as the least likely person to crash his car, it would've been Jack Harris.

The only time I've ever personally seen him even go off course was the infield at Lowes, in the inaugural Honda Challenge season.

 

Hey guys,

Thanks for sharing the war stories, and just to clarify there's no morbid curiosity on my part, nor do I mean any disrespect posting pics.... I certainly wouldn't do it with a crash where somebody was seriously injured, but just to show that even through some wrecks here and there, people still enjoy this sport that many people still have a hard time understanding....

I think it goes along the same lines as riding a motorcycle.... one day you're bound to drop it no matter how good you are/get.... It's the law of averages....

I only meant for this post to share and to keep others from thinking "Once I hit the track, I do everything I couldn't do on the street..." which is something I hear from time to time from novices and in the rare instances with experienced HPDE'rs

Be safe and keep having fun out there!

 

My first, and only, wreck on the track resulted in flaggers being named after me. Top that! LOL!

 

I went off for the first time last year, in testing.
Track was on off wet all day, it just dried out, I switched to slicks and made it 2 corners...
Just a bit too much power, which honestly was almost zero, but the slicks were cold/dirty, away I went. We had just finished a new nose we custom built for the car, and I ruined it instantly, not cool.
Other than that its been ok, no contact or offs, I hope I don't have one.

 

Been tracking cars since '99, and I'm in my second year of w2w. I've had my fair share of wrecks, but mainly street cars and well before digital cameras were even available.

My latest was on a cold, frosty February morning in 2002, with my daily driven Solo-I car on the way to an event. I hit a spot of black ice and spun off the road straight into a telephone pole. At the time, the car had a Autopower 6-point bolt-in cage. My left hip hit the un-padded door bar and gave me a very attractive bruise on my ***. I still had the airbag hooked up, and I'm pretty confident that it saved me (even though it almost broke my sternum).

I don't mind showing pictures, it's just a car and it was basically unavoidable. And the best part is, I walked away.

I've had a few offs at the track, most recently last weekend where I almost collected a Corvette at Bremerton, but so far I've been pretty fortunate (knocks on desk).

The perfect telephone pole signature. Ahhh.. the memories

 

johng, did you call the police and/or put that thru insurance? I'm just wondering what the effects of wrecking a numbered and stickered autocross or track car on the street could be. I would imagine that the police and the insurance co. would just say that you were "racing" on the street, write you a ticket, not cover the loss, and say "good luck finding a new insurer." Please tell me I'm wrong.

Thanks

 

My first track day was in October 1987, with the Shelby Cobra club. I did tons of autocross and track events before my first wreck.

My first wreck was at the Bondurant School in Phoenix in '93, driving in the Pro Search Mustang. I went into a left hand turn, which was near the top of 3rd gear, around 90mph. Got the car loose, ran out of track, slid for about 150 feet, then backed into a hollow plastic barrier, which acted like a pivot on my right rear tire. This shot me into the air, picture the space shuttle launching (a quote from Bill Cooper). After flying through the air for over 100 feet, I landed on the roof, right by my head. Did an endo, then spun into 3 barrel rolls. I ended up lying on my drivers side. They did such a good job training me that I kept the motor running the entire time, I had the clutch in, and was blipping the throttle (it was carbureted). Let's just say I destroyed the car, nothing survived, except me Completely un-hurt Only the points of contact for the seat belts were sore.

Always buy the insurance at a driving school. I did $35K in damage, the deductible was $3K.

My second wreck, also in a Mustang and in Phoenix, was my own 86 Mustang prepped to American Sedan specs. This was during a national race at Firebird, on the first lap. I was laying back on the first lap, letting the field sort itself out. We were entering the back chicane near the final turn, this is where we bounce off the curbs getting 2 wheels in the air, the car in front of me lost his power steering while in the air. He went off the track, hit the outside wall, and slid back onto the track in front me me. I was on 2 wheels while he was bouncing back onto the track, I knew I was toast. I had no brakes or steering while I was up on 2 wheels. As he slid up the track, he got up on 2 wheels, that is when I went under him. 2 of his wheels came through my windshield, I could see his drive shaft. He then barrel rolled down the guard rail and managed to take out the only other Mustang in the race. I smacked the guard rail after I hit him. I should have let go of the steering wheel, hitting the wall jammed my wrists into the steering wheel. No injuries, for myself or the other 2 drivers. This time I was sore, wrists and neck.

That was when I decided to end road racing, unless you can "FLUSH" the car down the toilet. Seriously, if you can't afford to completely throw the car away, don't go out on the track, any track. I have seen and been involved in way too many incidents. And most importantly, build the cage and all the safety equipment to the most allowed by the rules, no minimums here. Wear a full face helmet, shield closed, even in 117 degree heat. It is always better to have it and never need it, then to not have it and need it.

My wrecks were in fully prepped race cars, with top flight safety equipment. Think 30 or 40 times before taking your street car out for that open track day.

Jeff

 

Police on the scene wrote me a ticket for something like 'driving too fast for the conditions' to the tune of $250. The problem is, the surface "conditions" at that point were invisible. It didn't help matters on the scene to have a race-looking car wreck a mile from the entrance to a race track. I fought the ticket in court and the whole thing was dropped. The car was a total and the insurance company bought the wreck from me at a very fair price (after I took off most of what I could salvage). Stickers and roll cage tubing were removed before the adjuster came, just to be on the safe side.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by krbobcat &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">To make this shorter, I got a ride to the hospital, x-rays, CAT scan, and an MRI to find that I had a compressive fracture in my C7 vertebre. So I'm now the proud owner of a couple of fused together vertebre and a titanium plate and screws in my neck.</TD></TR></TABLE>

W W Kevin. Didn't know you've been thru such injuries. Glad to see that you are fine and back on the track now.

 

I was a "TIME TRIALER" in TCRA back when they were called TCCRRA. I think it was 1998 or so. I did the Time Trials for about 1 year when I had a mishap at Buttonwillow and smashed the whole right side of the Integra against a tire barrier.

After the wreck, it became apparent to me that the car needs to be a dedicated track car. No more of this street/track nonsense. Thats when I begain to build the car for wheel to wheel racing. I went out and bought a type R for a street car Should have been the other way around huh?

 

After my first complete wheel-to-wheel season in 2003, I built a new car over the winter of 2004. The first time I drove it ont he track, I totalled it. I lost control on a dogleg turn and slid into the minimal tire barrier at around 55 mph.

Here was my post about it:
https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=839055

I was not injured but I went to be looked over at the hospital just to be safe. Other than a minor scuffle with a spec Miata at Lime Rock and a minor scrape of the armco at Mosport, that's been it for me.

 

My first injury related to racing is actually from unloading the race car from the trailer right in front of my house.

Thankfully I haven't yet gotten involved in any big wrecks when racing on the track. I hope to keep it that way.

 

I have only had one "four off" at that was at a DE two years ago at TGPR in my twin turbo Supra. Somebody's car puked something in the entry to turn 1 there. I come into that turn at about 85mph. You do a slight left "jink" before you get into a long right sweeper that is part of a skidpad. While doing my initial turn-in the rear started sliding out to the right (not good when you are going to have to go right soon) then caught and went hanging out left. I stayed in the throttle at first trying to "dirt track" it around the skid pad. That wasn't working so I backed off and managed to go all the way around the back side of the skidpad still on the track. But a little wiggle happened and crap, I went off backward, both pedals in on wet grass (but dry track). Wet grass feels like acceleraton. I had scrubbed enough speed keeping it on the track that I only came up against the tire wall with the back bumper. No dent, just a scratch that buffed out. Two laps later was when the WRX lost it in the same spot and had a super nasty off, tripping in the grass and then flying about forty feet (in distance) about ten feet in the air just spinning. Car totaled. Driver hurt. Novice but fast DE driver.

He does not do DEs anymore. I do.

Barry H.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by speedracer33 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">My first, and only, wreck on the track resulted in flaggers being named after me. Top that! LOL!
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why would anyone want to top that?

 

My second HPDE day, with NASA-AZ at PIR. It was the third session of the day, it had just started raining, and I forgot that going slow (about 25mph down from my dry pace) through Turn 1 didn't mean I could get away with being mostly off the throttle.

The result:
http://www.public.asu.edu/~jayost/bentfront.jpg
http://www.public.asu.edu/~jayost/bentfront3-4.jpg
http://www.public.asu.edu/~jayost/bentrear.jpg
All things considered, it wasn't too bad- I walked away with nothing but a sore neck, my friend (who was an instructor) who was riding shotgun walked away, and the only parts destroyed were a fender, radiator, bumper, some lights, and a very disposable chassis. I ended up picking up a '87 DX to replace it with, with much better paint & bodywork, along with Illuminas & Escta V700's (it was a crappy HS car) for $500.

 

I hit a cone once, but fortunately I was able to rub the mark off with the sole of my shoe.

You guys be careful out there... this thread is scaring the hell out of me.