A real bad accident at my home track (Zhuhai, China) this weekend. This almost-new white/red 3RS got totalled after a bad spin at T3. Fortunately the driver walked away unharmed.

Point of this post is not to publicize a wreck, but to draw attention to a very bizarre and dangerous condition--this car's left door DETACHED ITSELF during the crash and was flung 100 yards down the track (see the speck on the grass at 0:35). I cringe at the thought of what could've happened if there was a person in that seat.

This location has in fact claimed many cars (and unfortunately one pro driver's life) in the past. At issue is a mild but high-speed right hander (see my video) that's often taken at full throttle. There is plenty of grassy run-off on the outside curve but almost none on the inside. From what could be gathered from eyewitness accounts and postmortem pics, this car went past the T3 apex at speed, understeered, driver held onto right steering lock and eventually the leftside wheels caught grass. A very fast spin ensued and the car hit the inside tire wall at an estimated 120-140kmh (guesstimated from tire tracks and wreck location)

What seriously disturbs me is how the door goes missing. Whatever Porsche advertises about passenger protection has gone down the drain with this one. Judging from the pictures, the passenger compartment clearly held its shape (roof structure, doorframe, windscreen uncracked). That rules out chassis deformation pushing the door out of its lock (even then, that is NOT supposed to happen). The only plausible explanation I can think of is the door unlocking and opening itself. It swung open in the subsequent impact(s) and got snapped clean off its hinges, as evidenced in the pic.

Are we looking at a freak accident or a bigger problem here?

p.s. I was very fortunate that this happened on my warm-up lap and I was coasting through the corner with plenty of time to stop. The crashed driver was clearly okay and walking around by the time I got to the scene at 0:28



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

 

wow, that is a big hit.

 

Thank god the driver walked away unharmed.

 

Thanks for the post. Reminds me that we do this for fun and not a career (at least me). I know it can happen to anybody, but you gotta be smart sometimes.

 

safety equipment. Every time.

 

Wow, time to strap that HANS on!

 

man that looks like a hard hard hit....and the end of a GT3 RS. Thank goodness that he walked away

 

Ugh, thankfully driver ok. Bet he dropped a wheel off that berm on the left, a fast version of Thunderhill T15 and another chronic car destroyer.

1. Never heard of a door coming off. In fact I have frequently heard how the door stays intact and able to open even after severe body damage.
2. We all know you really need to slam .2 GT3 doors to fully latch. Possible door was only partially latched. Without a before crash visual, we will never know though.

 

THIS! glad he was unharmed

 

Does anybody know details of this Sebring/Chin Event crash? Something about an instructor and having just replaced a set of front pads before it happened? Would be great to learn from another unfortunate incident

 

From Teamspeed:

Setting the record straight.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First of all both drivers are fine and the accident looks far worse than it actually is.
All of it, is body damage and none structural. That's the positive thing on the other hand it's not cheap.
Now lets get to what really happened and stop speculating all the nonsense that is posted here and everywhere else. I have been driving for over 10 years all tough I am not a pro I'm experienced and faster than most. The accident had nothing to do with experience or inexperience. The brake pads had been changed with pads that had sufficient material to finish the day without being too low. So the pad theory is out of the window there was nothing wrong with the pads. What did go wrong is the following unless someone can explain it differently is a combination of factors the first being; in any order was Hoosiers or any slick, Green Pagid Pads aggressive initial bite, PCCB's a very hot day and lots of rubber from the 12 hours of Sebring allowed for some pretty good grip. As I arrived to turn 17 at almost 150MPH I get on the brakes hard and trail brake which I have done 1000s of times but this particular day the ABS Must have gone nuts because as I got on the brakes the pedal got extremely hard and the car did not slow down, as if the ABS said there is no way that this car can decelerate that quickly and went into this mode thinking that the tires were locking up and quickly released brake pressure and stiffened the pedal. However I did have time to release and reapply pressure a few times, but the same result took place, at that time the car had slowed a bit. but the wall was getting closer very quickly so a last effort to rotate the car resulted in understeer that scrubbed some speed before, I went under the first set of tire wall which is the reason the roof and deck lid is damaged. And NO IT DID NOT ROLL OVER. and hit the second tire wall just before the bridge.

 

BTW, Savyboy, I thought brake rotors and sexy would never be uttered in the same sentence. Until I saw your avatar.

 

And that is not the "final" solution :-)

Ok, no-threadjacking!

 

Can an OP "jack" his own thread

 

Truth is, these cars are challenging to drive as is. Throw human error and other random factors into the equation and this becomes a rather dicey affair.

I was on the fence about a HANS before. Now I'm gonna order one rickety tick.

p.s. I thought I had a weird car whose doors don't close properly unless I slammed them. Glad to know it's a Gen 2 "feature"... still I doubt the driver in this incident would've left the pitlane with a "door ajar" warning...