had a track day at Limerock last week, heres a short video of a mustang wiping out in front of me. if you listen you can here him hit the wall after leaving the field of vision of my cam, more video to come

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM8ssfji27A

 

Did the Mustang driver give you the OK to post this video? It's bad form to post pictures / video of other people's misfortune without their consent. I know when I had a crash on a track, I asked the people there (a much smaller group than at an HPDE) to not post anything about it until I was ready, and I'd post stuff myself.

Think about what it would be like if it was your car.

 

actually i figured seeing what happened from behind might help to figure out what happened, besides you cant read the licence plate #

 

Sounded like a pretty good hit. Hope he is alright.

 

Yeah... I hope the driver's okay... I'm not sure what went wrong... but I think posting the video for him to look at later so he could figure out what went wrong was probably the right thing to do.

Better to learn from incidents like this IMO.

 

That is sad. It probably was fortunate that it was raining because he went off at a lower speed that he would have in the dry. Although if it was dry he may not have fallen off the island.

Looked like he got his left side wheels onto the wetter part of the track. Lots of power, RWD + wet track = off track.

As far as posting that video goes I see nothing wrong with it.

 

well i didnt want to go here but i am :-) , i think the reason he wiped out is because he took such a low line instead of drifting out to the outside, he had just been past by a few cars and coming onto this straight i was going to make a pass on him, i think he saw it coming and went low to hold me back. If he drifted out like normal i would have went in low and full power for an easy pass. I think some people dont like the idea of a clown car passing them :-)

 

Under those conditions you certainly did have the faster car.

I've found what you described about people not wanting a MINI to pass them to be true. It has happened to me many times. Gets kind of frustrating after a couple of laps. When off track I will go find them & ask them why they will not give a point by to a faster car. Most say they didn't see me. Next time out they will give a point by. If they don't I would tell the people that are running the track day.

 

A good flag station crew will help you out with blue flags, or a black flag for someone with a vision issue.

Otherwise I find it effective to brake on a line that puts half your car in the rear view mirror and half in the side mirror.

I've gone up the side of a few especially stubborn folks. I don't recommend this tactic for the lower run groups.

Alan

 

Some people just don't like letting anyone pass, or are just clueless, I'm not sure which. At last week's trackday at Laguna Seca I followed a 350Z who couldn't get by a Mustang for a lap, before he pointed by the Z, but didn't let me by even though I was a foot behind the Z. I then followed the Mustang for a lap before the chequer with my instructor commenting on the Mustang's skills (or lack thereof).

The lap behind the Mustang was 10 seconds slower than my previous lap. So the instructor had a talk to the marshalls, who obviously had a talk to the Mustang driver. The next time I caught up with him he let me by at the first practical opportunity.

 

Speaking of driver's not wanting to be passed ...

Last Saturday I was on the track (in my 2007 MCS) with a newer turbo Honda Civic in front. The course is 1/2 mile of straight track (drag race 1/4 mile) followed by just over 1/2 mile of twisties. I was practically idling through the twisties behind the civic, then he would pull away when I tried to do the pass at the start of the straight. At the end of the first turn, I would be back behind the Civic. This progressed for 4 laps. At one point (at the instructor's suggestion) I was almost on top of the Civic to inform the corner marshals of my situation, Civic got the blue flag, and still no point by. We ended up pulling off to get a 'change of scenery', pulled back on ~ 30 seconds later, and within 1 lap of empty track I was back behind the Civic.

In all fairness this was DE1 track time, so everyone on the track is new to the experience. Ah well, I still had plenty of track time that made it worthwhile.

And in reference to the posted video, at every driver's meeting I've attended there's a request to not take pictures or video of crashes that occur on the track. I never though of it from the event coordinator's perspective until then ...

Cheers,
Jeff

 

My friend wrecked in that same exact spot a couple of years ago. First session of the day, instructor class, cold, slippery, wet day like is typical of Lime Rock in April. I think every time I've been at Lime Rock someone has spun and wrecked on that corner.

I don't agree with your analysis. He was wide not low. On wet track you don't want to drift too far off the dry line at all. The Mustang was wide on that last turn coming onto the main straight. Because he was wide, his outside wheels were in the very wet line. It looks like he noticed he was wide and jerked the wheel to try and get it closer to the apex. That jerking of the wheel and the wet tires upset the available traction and he went off. You never want to make anything but smooth wheel movements in slippery conditions. Soft hands.

Newbie mistake. Too bad. Learn from someone's mistake.

 

Sorry to come on here like this. Let me introduce myself a little. I don't own a Mini but I do like them and some day will get into one and take it around the track. Seems like it'd be a really fun track car. I do own a 1995 Nissan 200SX SE-R so I can empathize about "faster" cars not giving the point on the track... more on that later.

I was the instructor in the Mustang in the video. I was at another PDA event this past Saturday at Pocono and the owner clued me in to it. I figured I'd see if I could find the owner of the Mini on a forum and here I am. He didn't seem to be angry about the video being on the internet. The owner's son was actually driving the car. It was a new car and he was helping his father sort it out a bit. This was the third session of the day but only our second on track (we missed the second session). The driver was new to Limerock and was fairly new to driving in the wet. Honestly, the car felt twitchy in our first session and neither of us were all that comfortable. If it weren't for the fact that it was so freaking wet, I would've gotten down on the ground and under the car to try to figure out the suspension settings and soften them up a bit. I was planning on taking the car out later in a different session just to see if it was the driver inputs or if the car really was that twitchy. Unfortunately I didn't get the chance :(

Thanks for posting the video though. Here's what happened. In the first session the driver was doing decent but wasn't going all that fast. I was fine with that being that it was a new car to him and a new track to him and in the semi wet (the first session was a lot less wet than you can see on the video). I figured we would build speed over the course of the day. I had previously warned him about the uphill and the lift you experience in the front end and not to add steering input to upset the car. Well, in the first session he did freak out a bit and turned the wheel and got the car a little loose there at the uphill. That was at the end of that session and really put some fear in him.

The second session he was going very easy and conservatively. He was not there to be the fastest car out there and by no means does he have the attitude of "I'm not going to let that 'slower' car by me" I've been in the car with people like that and it drives me absolutely nuts because, like I said, I've been in that boat before myself sitting behind someone lap after lap after lap - even worse when they pull 10-15 carlengths on the straight but under braking you're right back up their bumper! Even telling the student to let the faster car go by and he refuses because he has a "faster" car. (I have video somewhere following a 400+ HP Porsche around Limerock for about 11 laps HOUNDING him in the corners before he finally let me by only to find my temp gauge spiked and needed to cool down) Anyway, he was just trying to get a better feel for the car and we were spending most of the time pointing people by. So honestly, I felt that he was driving very conservative and the car really could have been pushed harder. But I'd rather have conservative than aggressive as you can see where aggressive gets you by the video!

It was an unfortunate mistake that just happened. We were coming down the downhill and I think he was trying to keep up with the traffic in front. He came down too fast and realized it. I think he said sh*t or something like that because he realized he was going too fast. So he did his braking and needed a little extra track to do the braking so he went out into the really wet stuff out to the left side to continue braking in a straight line. When he thought he had slowed enough, he made the turn-in. I didn't think we were going slow enough and was not expecting the tires to grab ... but they did. At this point we were 100% coasting and it looked like we were going to make it. I caught my breath and was just opening my mouth to tell him not to get on the gas too soon because we were offline and in the real wet stuff and would wind up spinning. I think I got the words "now, you don't want to..." before he hit the gas and it was over at that point. The back end went to the left, he steered into it but it was too late. And once we hit the grass it felt like we accelerated.

We hit on my corner in the front and I think we spun around 360 and hit the guardrail again. I hurt my neck and that's why they wanted to take me to the hospital. I got checked out and was heading back home with the rest of you guys after the track event. In fact, I caught up to the Mustang driver and his father as they were on their way home near the Taconic. My neck hurt for about a week but it's better now. The driver was a bit sore for a few days afterward but that's it. He said that you could see an indent in the dash where he hit his knee. It was definitely an experience I don't want to duplicate anytime soon!

 

Hey cool! Thanks for posting!

 

Same thing happened to a Porsche GT3 on June 15th at the same corner in the wet except he just hit the tire wall, fortunately.

 

I could be wrong but I thought that was a white Nissan 350Z. Broadsided the tire wall on the right. It was from my run group, on the third lap in the last session in the persistent rain. I saw him go in, almost the same as in the video. He was OK which is good.

LRP can be unforgiving but it is much better after the repave.

 

Veggivet,

What were you running in LRP June 15?

 

Slinger, you're probably right on the call. I only got a quick look at him as i came down the hill. Either way, glad he was OK, and the car probably didn't take that much damage, hopefully. I was running the Electric Blue R53. License plate BLUZRULZ. What were you driving?

 

I am in the 2008 white MCS parked next to you in the paddock.