In-Car Video from California Speedway

[Jack Olsen]

Rearin' to go... That's Pelicanite WolfTurbo's monster 993TT peeking in on the left. There is simply no catching that car on the straights.


I went to a DE on Thursday at California Speedway sponsored by the San Diego PCA. It's not often that clubs can afford to rent this facility, and this event offered six (that's right, six) run sessions during the day.

The bad news? Well, I made one particularly dumb move on the track, which led to my t-boning a tire stack at the end of the course's biggest braking zone. Watching the footage of it, I'm amazed at my own stupidity, and very grateful that I didn't damage anyone else's car.

Damage to my car? Surprisingly minimal. I need a new piece of door glass, the chrome trim piece that goes at the top of the door, and a new rear-view mirror. At the moment when it happened, I thought it would be much worse.

Fiberglass has one fantastic characteristic that steel lacks. When you push it in, it bends, burps, and bounces back. The tire stack I hit pushed the door skin into the (rolled-down) window, shattered it, and even pushed the interior door panel flush against the cage.

And then it all bounced right back, without even cracking the paint. There's a small tear, though, at the very top, which I'm going to have to take to pelicanite KevinP73's shop to get fixed. But that's pretty much it.

It could have been much worse, and I hope repeated viewings of the clip will help me to avoid getting into a situation like this again.

Here are some stills of the impact, for those of you without high-speed connections (or a lot of patience).



And here's the 2-megabyte Quicktime clip of the spin. You can see from it that I'm very lucky I didn't cause more damage to my own car or -- more importantly -- someone else's. You can see me chasing the white car, and unwisely passing a silver car right before the braking zone -- and then braking too late without the car straight. No surprise, I got sideways.

I'm just glad I didn't get in anyone else's path.

Here's the clip.

Here are some other clips, all 6-7 megs.

Here's one of a signal orange early Targa courageously holding a big-displacement crowd at bay.

Here's one of Dave Buhain (Pelicanite MSRoadRace) running a very fast lap in his 3.6-liter 69S.

Here's my fastest lap, a 1:58, from when I got some free space in the fourth session.

[Stanley]

Nice videos Jack! You are very lucky that you didn't hit any other cars and that you only hit stack of tires. It goes to show that everyone make mistakes, no matter how experienced they are. To bad the videos didn't have any sound, I would have loved to hear all engines and tire squealing.

[KevinP73]

[i]To bad the videos didn't have any sound, I would have loved to hear all engines and tire squealing. [/B]

Sounds a little like "Ka-Ching !!"

[Joe Bob]

The bad news? Well, I made one particularly dumb move on the track, which led to my t-boning a tire stack at the end of the course's biggest braking zone. Watching the footage of it, I'm amazed at my own stupidity, and very grateful that I didn't damage anyone else's car.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Glad there was no major damage....looks like you over stepped the brakes? Front lock up? I hate that,,,,flat spots the tires and when you get back the tires have a definite thump thump.....

[Moses]

Glad you're not hurt.

Now let's talk about your paint! When good auto painters paint fiberglass, they add a resin polymer (forget the name) that adds a tremendous amount of flexibility to the paint.

It amazes me how much punishment a panel can take without cracking the paint.

Jack, please be careful with BB2. None of us are ready for BB3.

[Jack Olsen]

Mike, it was the rears that backed up. The proportion valve setting I'd been using for street tires was one notch off with the (mild) r-compounds I'm now running. The back boys locked up and the rear came around.

The microphone for my camera has some problem I haven't been able to figure out, yet. No vroom-vroom-ing makes the car seem slower in the videos.

I'll be careful, Moses. No one wants to start a third car less than me.

[Joe Bob]

Back lock....even worse.

[sammyg2]

Aw, it aint so bad. I saw it on thursday, I figured he just liked black duct tape and folded his mirror back for less wind resistance

[john70t]

Mabye a set of junk tires, a parking lot and a adjustable proportioning valve?

[Tyson Schmidt]

It has an adjustable proportioning valve. I installed it during the Open Track Challenge due to massive front wheel lock-up when we were running street tires.

Also Jack, with a much less aggressive rear wing than what we were running then, there's even more reson to give it more front bias.

[Tyson Schmidt]

Wow! Just watched the clip.

Definitely a little too aggressive into that braking zone. Could've been a lot uglier. Taking the inside line into that very tight corner was pretty ambitious, but you just might have barely pulled it off without the rears locking up first.

Of course, if the fronts had locked up first, you'd have probably tagged the white car, or at least shot into his path. Could've been a lot worse Jack. Glad you and the car are okay. I need to be working on Scruffy, not BB3!

[bell]

jack.....great vids.....helping me with my current 911 withdrawl.

glad nothing major broke.......and cars can be fixed

Jack

How fast were you going? It looks fast, but I'm surprised how quickly you came to a stop? Too bad that the sound is missing.

BTW I love the look with the RS 3.8 spoiler.

[Dutchie]

Glad you and BB are ok Jack thanks for sharing the video,s.

[jriera]

Glad to hear you are OK.. cars can be fixed...

Question: what is that thingy atop of your rearview mirror with the number 30 on it?

[speeder]

Originally posted by jriera


Question: what is that thingy atop of your rearview mirror with the number 30 on it?

It's kind of like the "710" cap under the hood, it says "D.E." if read from outside of car.

[k9handler]

man...that was scary!!!

But you were passing the others like they had just thrown it in reverse! Ha Ha...and I am very glad BBII is ok, and you as well Jack!

[Eric Mckenna]

Damn Jack... That White skinny azzed 3.6er was giving you a damn good run of it huh! haha
I live those narrrow bodied cars.. it reminds me of the ole BBI.


Thanks for the great Video!
Eric

[Jack Olsen]

Originally posted by Mikkel
How fast were you going? It looks fast, but I'm surprised how quickly you came to a stop? Too bad that the sound is missing.

Yeah, the lack of sound makes it seem fairly slow. But I'm over 130 mph on that straight, then it's hard braking down to a 2nd gear turn.

I was chasing the faster car (a woman, Louise Sousoures was driving it), and made a very basic 'target fixation' error. In having my eyes move from the silver car, which I (unwisely) went around, I looked up to judge the position of the white car, and never looked at the braking zone cones. I completely misjudged where I was on the track. And since I had moved inside of the white car, I had very few options open once the braking zone was gone and my rear wheels were locking up.

I'm actually lucky that I hit the tire rack, since it's the thing that slowed my forward movement toward the path of the white car. I think Sousoures is a good enough driver that she would have missed me in any case, but I'm glad it didn't come to that.

[Jack Olsen]

Here's a picture "swbsam" took of Sousoures. She (or whoever was sharing the car with her) was four full seconds faster than me around the track.

It's a pretty well-prepped race car, though.