Uphill battle

[dalyduo]

Steve Kunsey called to say they were running a rare single lapping day at LRP last week and having missed the Glen I said… “sign me up!”

George McArthur, Dom Bastien and Ted Jewell (Watertown Newbie) were the only race series guys I knew, with a gaggle of recent 3 & 2 day graduates looking for seat time. RB Stiewing was ringmaster with Bruce MacInnes, Carl Lopez, and Stephan B. watching the corners. We’d run two groups with two short twenty-minute sessions followed by one 35-minute session. I’d be in group 2 sharing a car with Dom.

As luck would have it, George and Dom went out in group 1 and were in the middle of their second short session when George got sideways through West Bend leaving Dom, right on his tail, no place to go. They both wound up with damage but thankfully no injuries, and both got into spare cars and completed their session.

Then it was my turn. At about lap five with warm tires and increasing speed, all was well as we progressively shortened our throttle pause each lap on no-name straight before turn-in to the uphill. Correct that... All was well until the moment we carried so much entry speed into the apex that we lost our nerve and feathered the throttle where no feathering should be taking place! Putting the throttle back to the floor was the right choice to stabilize the car but it also meant chasing the tail, now sliding left, and increasing the arc of our turn wider than the desired line. It's also possible that we created or compounded the problem by turning in early or missing the apex wide but we were so busy catching our "Oh Sh__" lift moment that we'll just never know for sure. At this point we do know that making the turn is going to be close and lifting again will mean certain disaster. So we keep our foot in it and feel momentary relief when the rear end hooks up launching us up the hill. We are focused well right of the new high Armco that meets the old low Armco at the flagging stand but the car is too far left. Time shifts into slow motion as the left front wheel just barely clears the new Armco and the left side of the car is so close that we know we aren't going to make a clean gettaway. In the next millisecond the left rear wheel squarely nails the new Armco at full throttle. The impact bends back the Armco support post about 25 degrees, shears off the left rear wheel and suspension before pitching the car up and over to the right as we crest the hill in a flying barrel roll that lands us sliding upside down toward West Bend, flat spotting the roll bar. We skitter upside down more than 100 yards before hitting right side grass that flips us back right side-up with the motor still idling. Woof... (As Craig Breedlove once said after climbing from his wadded up land speed record jet car... "For my next number I'd now like to do a little tap dance for you..."

The front wheels were still on the car and we'd have loved nothing more than pushing it into gear and motoring back to the pits like nothing had happened. Thought of Rob Slonaker’s tale of a newbie who had just knocked the back end of his car off and looked up at Rob to ask if he could drive it back to the pits, not realizing the absence of drive wheels. Given what had just occured we double-checked the mirrors and confirmed we were, in fact, one wheel and quite a few suspension pieces short of a proper set... So we switched off the motor and noticed the enormous dust cloud we'd just created at the crest of the uphill was beginning to sprout racecars. They were sufficiently slowed by the dust and site of me disabled on the inside grass to pose no further threat.

The inversion of the car was experienced with curious detachment. The initial jolt felt like a powerful tug from a rope that rotated the car quickly upside down, throwing the cockpit into darkness (Holy Sh__, I’m upside down!) while striations in the pavement rushed past my head like stars from an old Star Trek episode when the Enterprise launched into Hyperspace.

My hands were barely visible on the steering wheel (pulling thumbs back.) and in one of those "time stands still" moments recalled our multiple advocacy posts for arm restraints on TJR while also realizing we had picked the wrong moment to leave our restraints safely tucked in our gear bag back in the tower. (Doh!) Fortunately our arms remained safely inside the cockpit.

As the dust settled Bruce and RB, immediately on scene, didn’t know the car had flipped until they saw the flat spot on the roll bar.

We were extremely grateful to come away with absolutely no physical injury from our royal screw up. The part shedding all happened behind us. Our elbow and kneepads worked perfectly as shock insulators in the cockpit and the whole experience was far less upsetting than The Tower of Terror ride I endured at Disney World a few years back.

After a brief EMS check-up we got back in another car and continued to challenge the uphill enough for Papa Carl to call us in and kindly suggest a second big crash was not on his recommended list of things for us to accomplish that day. :-) And I was OK with being on a rather short leash for the rest of the day.

Thoughts on the LRP Uphill Armco: By moving back the Armco at the base of the uphill this past winter to accommodate a tethered tire barrier for safely collecting cars at the bottom, (Sort of a rain-line catchers mitt) they've created a potentially more dangerous situation at the top. Instead of deflecting a car that runs wide going up the hill there is now the real danger of being captured or stopped dead (so to speak) by the angle of the newly recessed and completely exposed high Armco where it comes out to meet the old Armco near the crest of the hill.

Immediately following my hit the right vertical edge of the new Armco received an orange day-glow stripe to alert drivers to its location, I suppose. But the paint now draws attention to itself in such a way that a newbie in trouble might fixate eyes on it and go right for it. If it were my choice I'd move the flag stand and Armco back at the top so the Armco angle would never include the possibility of capturing a car at speed. That would be an extensive modification but certainly a lifesaver worth investing in. Hate to imagine catching the current configuration with a front wheel or nose at full song.

Never wanted to be the LRP crash test dummy but hope constructive change will come of this misadventure. When I left the track Skippy and LRP folk were at the uphill discussing it. One fix being considered was bringing the tire barrier up farther to attenuate impacts before getting to that new Armco at the top.

We may have been one of the first to visit that spot but doubt we'll be the last.

Moments before my first session we’d been sitting in the van with RB watching the uphill commenting on the irony of the most experienced guys on track, George and Dom finding each other in west bend and now I was standing there with helmet in hand making it a perfect tri-fecta with $14,638 of damage and a flat spotted roll bar nicely managed all by myself.

In the end we weren’t gritting our teeth hell-bent for speed when this happened. In fact we were attempting to be gradual and progressive in our speed increases so they would be controlled and repeatable. Instead of sneaking up on speed, it snuck up on us. Data acquisition would have been fun to reverse engineer the moment and pin point all the little mistakes that led to the big moment. But in the end, the faster you go, the smaller the margin for error (especially at Lime Rock) and we caught ourself out going faster than we could handle, thinking we could adjust on the fly. Very humbling and very lucky the hit was only financial.

After our visit to EMS walking up pit lane George McArthur stalked halfway down the lane to greet us with a warm hug and look of concern that was unexpected and touching. Dom, the instructors and other drivers all showed their own versions of that same concern. It kept reminding me that we aren't just playing video games here and how lucky we are to have each other and this talented group of instructors to play with and learn from. It is always a special priviledge, even when we screw up.

As I was packing up in the classroom someone asked me, (I think it was Ted) if anyone had passed me on the track all day. Everyone kind of stopped and looked at me while I pondered the question and I realized that in fact, no one had passed me all day., But I also knew my experience level far exceeded everyone else in the group and what the correct answer was...

"Oh sure people passed me", I said "... when I was facing backwards in a car with 3 wheels and a flat spot on the rollbar... EVERYONE passed me! :-)"

It got the expected laugh but it went to the truth of how I felt about exceeding my ability and crashing. If I was fast enough to pass everyone with less experience than me... I should have also been smart enough to keep it on the track.