Mark,

I did indeed boil the fluid with such thin pads. After bleeding the system and installing Pagid Orange pads, the car ran great for the rest of the weekend.

I could tell something was amiss, because my car wagged slightly from side to side going into turn 14 onto the front straight. I incorrectly thought that I had just overheated my brakes, so I took it easy through the next couple of turns and the brakes felt fine. However, when heading into turn 5, the pedal went straight to the floor.

In the future, I plan to follow the advice of changing the pads at 50%. I'm also installing Pagid Blacks as soon as the Oranges are used up.

 

For reference (If you didn't try that) the brakes will come back with a pump or two. I took a new set of stock pads almost the the backing plates in one day at Watkins Glen. Entering T1 at ~140 the pedal went almost to the floor. Gets the heart going, doesn't it?

With the TT, you have a different set of tracks that are hard on brakes. In general, fast tracks with long straights, such as RA or The Geln and considered easy on brakes. With the TT you have such high speeds, that these are the tracks that are really hard on brakes. Start doing some mods so you can add another 10-15 mph top speed and it only gets worse.

 

Ahh...Turn 1 at the Glen without brakes...quite a pucker, IMO. Had that happen to me too, in a Volvo race car ("Volvo race car" isn't an oxymoron - I'm sure the phrase says something significant about the speaker...just haven't figured out just WHAT it says).

Brake master cylinder mounting bracket fractured off the firewall as I stepped on the brakes at the Ninety, pedal just went "clunk", down to the floor and stayed there. There was nothing to pump. "Oh my, this is unfortunate" I thought. Luckily, I had several prior visits to the gravel trap at T1 and knew how to enter it at the maximum diagonal, lengthening the distance to the outside wall. No whack, just lots of kitty litter in the suspension.

The moral of the story: Brakes are kinda important. Check them, and all their ancillary doo-dads, often. Do a 'nut & bolt' before venturing out on the track. Open the damn hood and visually check stuff. A visual check would probably have saved me from digging buckets of gravel out of the suspension and prying little rocks out of my brake calipers all afternoon.

Lesson #1 in 'Racing Crisis Management' is knowing when to bail out, and understanding when you've run out of 'talent'.

Is this thread starting to veer ?

 

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by Professor Helmüt Tester:
<strong>Brakes are kinda important.
</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Bah. Just throw out the anchor. Of course, anchors are a trade-off. Big ones are heavy. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by Professor Helmüt Tester:
<strong>Lesson #1 in 'Racing Crisis Management' is knowing when to bail out, and understanding when you've run out of 'talent'.

Is this thread starting to veer ?</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Actually, I think you've just brought it full circle and back on track with this statement.

I usually teach the SE-R Club of America DE classroom session at our annual convention. I always discuss "The Crash" video from Lime Rock Park where a Scooby goes on its roof (video is in-car for those who haven't seen it) regarding exactly what you wrote above. With no disrespect the the driver of that car, that video provides plenty of material to discuss along these exact lines (knowing when and how to bail). There were a number of things that were done wrong in that video and a number of opportunities to save the car. I'm sure the driver in the video would do something much different today. We should all learn from this. It's always better to learn from someone else's errors. In many ways that video can be seen as a gift to others who want to drive on a track.

 

George,
I'd be interested in seeing that video. I'm into learning from others' mistakes, especially starting out in DE.

David

 

My 2 cents -
Racing and being on track at speed is dangerous, period. You need to know that and be a little worried. It's when your complacent or just plain don't know your limits, that you screw up, creating a dangerous situation for your self and others.
At the Glen this year during the One Lap (bear in mind that this is Day 1 of 6) there were at least 6 biggish off's, 1 car totaled, and a couple wounded pretty badly. One person made the trip back to the pit's in the back of an ambulance, luckily OK after the air bags went off. Every day we had off's, some days were worse than others. @ Road America the run group in front of me had 4 out of 6 cars not make it back to the pits on their own. Several cars took big hit's that day and continued on. It was a learning experience for me, having never seen the track before and running in heavy fog, it was pretty scary. The was car totally sideways at almost every turn. But event that was a good experience after it was all over.
This is time trialing and not a DE, but you get the picture. It ain't no Disneyland ride.
Out of a week i spend a lot of time thinking i was slow, and well i was, but i brought it back in one piece.
Maybe i should spend a 1000.00 a second
Uh, No...

 

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by David Edwards:
<strong>George,
I'd be interested in seeing that video. I'm into learning from others' mistakes, especially starting out in DE.

David</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">I believe you're looking for Patrick Olsen's crash video, and here it is:

<a href="http://www.submariner.org/thepno95/Video%20clips/LRP%20August%202000/thecrash.mpg" target="_blank">http://www.submariner.org/thepno95/Video%20clips/LRP%20August%202000/thecrash.mpg</a>
Ahmet

 

great (& sobering ) video - he seems to have good control of the car until just before the accident (early apex?). Anyway, as a relative DE newbie, i would be most interested in hearing Georges analysis of what he should have done as things started to go south - i hope to go to Lime Rock this year and would definitely like to avoid that type of incident.

 

Herr Professor brought up a very important point about knowing when to bail out. It seems like a lot of bad "offs"occur when a driver continues to try and catch his car, after that point of know return when "both feet in" comes into play.

Once at Summit Point (during a DE) is was coming into turn 1 in a pack of cars. This was the first time on track after I installed my big reds and failed to realize that they take a little longer to warm up than stock Carrera brakes. I got in to deep, proceeded to lock up since I wasn't slowing down as much as was mecessary. I had three choices, 1)take the escape road (which was occupied by a car that had a mechanical issue), 2)try to make the turn which probably would have led to a spin (in the middle of a group of 4 cars) or 3) drive it into the gravel trap. I chose option 3 and like the Professor, got to spend the rest of afternoon picking pebbles out of just about every nook and cranny on the underside of my car. I looked at the situation thinking I'd rather have to pick out rocks, than face the mechanic if I had bent the car.

 

Thanks for the link. I would be interested in some educational commentary as well. I had a big off at roebling road, that luckily ended in no damage, but I learned from it immensely. Learning these things from someone else's mistakes is the next best thing.

David

 

Main thing that poor guy did was not correct soon enough. By the time he started countersteering it was too late. Went off crooked and that was all she wrote.

 

Adding fuel to the fire, Frank's (aka Ghettoracer) account of the racing incident.

<a href="http://www.ghettoracer.com/events/nasa-ws-smc-0503/" target="_blank">http://www.ghettoracer.com/events/nasa-ws-smc-0503/</a>

excerpt from the link...

"Shawn did not slow down at all... and I'd have to ask why? The only logical explanation was Shawn was on a good hot lap and did not want to waste it. Perhaps he thought I was spinning off the track for sure and he just kept pressing on. ...as the driver behind, Shawn had more options than I did. He could turn left, or turn right (off track to the right was the easiest thing), or more importantly, slow down. But none of that happened, he hit me at (or near) full speed. On the entry of T5, you can see the track completely all the way until top of T6, so I imagined he must've seen the spin develop. If this was a open track/DE day, I think almost everyone would emphasize the blame the car on the back."

 

So you want to fault Frank because he didn't place his car in the exact perfect location while spinning backwards to avoid another car tearing at him at 80 mph? Dogpile on him all you want but this is getting a little ridiculous.

 

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by JC in NY:
<strong>So you want to fault Frank because he didn't place his car in the exact perfect location while spinning backwards to avoid another car tearing at him at 80 mph? Dogpile on him all you want but this is getting a little ridiculous.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Huh? If you are responding to the post above yours, that is an excerpt of what FRANK wrote. I don't see anyone faulting him for what you claim. Now if you want to address his attitude, or the fact that he is trying to put almost all the blame on the other driver, then I imagine there are plenty of people who will want to pile on.

I am curios, JC. Do you race? If so, do you take responsibility for your own mistakes or find others to blame. If it is the former, then I wonder why you are sayihg the things you say in this thread. You asked about my history, so right back at you. Do you have some history with Frank or some racing history that impacts your view on this?

 

JC: It's not ridiculous if you consider Frank's many claims of being able to control any car under any circumstances. His hubris knew no bounds, and -- first time out in a competitive environment -- it bit him (and another driver) in the butt.

I just read his full description of the event. On the one hand, he says "Just about every school teaches, in a spin, both feet in." Yet he's just described the following: "My car was going backwards, towards outside (right side) of the track. I got on the brakes to slow the car down hoping it would not cross his path, but now he is moving the car to his left, I let up the brakes, by then my car had came close to a full stop and briefly I thought of jamming the gear into reverse to get out of the way but there was no time for that." He was coasting backwards while using the brake (intermittently) to try and predict where the oncoming car was going to go. Obviously, this didn't allow his car to move in a straight, predictable line (as it would have if he had put both feet in).

That Frank was 'trying to place his car' at all is a big part of the problem. It's NOT what you do when you're spinning on a track. How was the other car supposed to know what tricks he was using to control his movement?

Both feet in. It creates as predictable a path for an out-of-control car as can be hoped for. Accidents are rarely 100% anyone's fault, and I didn't see this one, but I doubt it's 100% Frank's fault at all. But his description is disturbing because its filled with so much deflection and self-aggrandizement. Frank's a capable driver, by all accounts, but he's not a very circumspect or humble one, which will get in the way of him being really great at what he does (and, for that matter, particularly safe on a track).