pkh

I have been tracking for a few years and though I have had several spins / offs, just had my first encounter with a wall.

I was going onto main straight in the first hour of a 7 hour team endurance race in a E46 M3 (I rented a seat.) In my last few turns the car had just started to show that something might not be going right, a bit greasy under power. Nothing drastic, but enough that I had started to back off but was still going about 80% speed (I was thinking maybe tires overheating or had driven through oil.) I had already radio'd in about the problem and was just about to call in that I would pit in next time around....

Then while headed down the front straight at Portland International Raceway, the car suddenly took a hard right turn on me and spun. I had maybe 1-2 seconds of trying to brake speed as much as I could before I spun off the asphalt and into the grass and then the wall.

I actually was knocked unconscious (my head didn't hit anything) and was awakened when the crew got to me about 40 seconds later and were trying to get me out of the car. I felt fine though a bit groggy like I just woke up from a nights sleep. I talked them out of cutting my suit off me, but they still took me to hospital on stretcher in the Ambulance.

All in all I suffered a concussion and a sore left leg, a few abrasions on my left arm. I am so grateful for a cage and my Hans device. I will never go on track without a Hans again.

The car is a total loss (save some parts), the owner was gracious and said since it was a mechanical issue I owe him nothing.

I have a few questions though about next steps:

- Should I buy a new helmet? It didn't hit anything but obviously this was a traumatic event as it caused me to be unconscious

- I ordered a new tether for my Hans, but I assume I should probably send it in to get recertified too?

- What would happened in my street Porsche GT4 (no cage, but w/ harness + HANS)? I am thinking the cage really saved my *** here

- I included a few photos of what looked like source of the problem the drivers side rear wheel. If anyone is good at reading these things I'd appreciate feedback. The owner has written it off at this point but I am still curious. Background: It had been in an accident at the last race (not me driving, much less serious and mostly damage to the front end) and had seen a lot of offs and what not before. This was the first 40 minutes of track time it had seen since that last accident.

I still want to race and track cars again but it may different now, I am not sure. It made the whole thing a lot more real than its ever been. I definitely have a new appreciation for safety equipment.

greyman09

Nizer

That's a big hit. Glad you're relatively okay.

ProCoach

Big hit! Glad you're ok.

If the car took a sudden right turn, the LR may have toed out or. less likely, the RR toed in.

Hard to tell as that LR is so badly damaged from the impact. Hard to tell what happened first. Not uncommon for these to break subframe tabs, trailing arm mounts from the body, trailing arm breakage, et cetera.

http://partsscore.com/e46-m3-rear-su...reinforcement/

Get a new helmet! The internal protection has been compromised. Send the old helmet to the manufacturer or to the Snell Institute for study.

Get the HANS tether replaced, have them recertify it as a matter of course.

On the GT4, at least a proper half-cage and a REALLY good seat is 90% of it. That's a fast car, too.

Hope this doesn't deter you...

Coochas

Yikes, glad you are OK.
Is it possible your helmet made contact with the cage somewhere? I'm wondering why you were concussed.

sugarwood

You just had a brush with death.
Go buy yourself a new helmet, in a color you like

pkh

I was thinking it was just the force of the hit, its the brain hitting the side of your skull that causes it right?

pkh

By good seat I am guessing you mean a halo style seat? I have Recaro Pole Positions right now. Its a bucket but doesn't offer any extra protection around the head.

If I get a half cage is the car still streetable without a helmet?

pkh

Ok I will do that! Thanks for everyone's comments, I can't tell if I feel better or not that you guys are all confirming it was a big crash. For whatever reason right afterwards I was feeling like it wasn't too big a deal except for the matter of the car being destroyed of course.

LuigiVampa

Buy a new helmet, chalk it up to a mechanical, and get yourself back out on track! Glad you escaped with relatively minor injuries.

skxf430

Half cage is still streetable without a helmet and only when you get a full cage you cannot drive the car without a helmet. I am not sure how much is gained with only just a half cage and no halo. Most half cages can be characterized as a fancy harness bar and any side impact you would want a seat with a halo. A Recaro P1300 is about the safest seat out on the market.

24Chromium

I had a 2001 BMW M3 (from your photos, it appears as though you were in an E46 as well). I tracked the car quite a bit, but only went as far as a big brake kit and R compound tires for mods. After a few years of ownership and daily driving, I noted that the rear end seemed to dart at times. I took it to numerous local BMW dealers and several independent shops for diagnosis. None of them claimed they could detect anything wrong. I finally took it to a BMW race shop, TC Design. The shop owner confirmed my complaint and described how the rear sub-frame on this and the prior generation 3 series BMW's were weak and sometimes failed. I authorized him to repair the car, and sure enough, he found major failures in the rear sub-frame. He had to re-weld some of it and add gussets to add additional strength.

I don't know if this is what led to your problem, but I never owned another BMW again, and after that, I switched to Porsches. I know the BMW 3 series cars are raced a lot at the club level in SCCA and NASA. I sure hope that those who do address these structural issues before racing them.

Get back on the horse and go racing again! In a Porsche!!

ProCoach

Manifold

Very sorry to hear of your crash. Do check in with your docs if you feel worse in any way in the coming days and weeks.

dgrobs

That first pic with you in the stretcher is disturbing. So glad you're relatively OK. That looked like one nasty impact. You're a lucky guy. Hope you can get back to tracking and put this incident behind you.
Glad you're ok. Good luck...