Manifold

… plus cameras won't always capture what the driver sees from his vantage point.

The driving wasn't pro level, but I wouldn't call it **** poor by any stretch. We need to be careful about hindsight bias when we analyze these incidents.

winders

You are spot on!

85Gold

+ Juan

Peter

dgrobs

+ Jose

cre8fun

for what it's worth.

someone asked about the hit - I was maybe the 4th or 5th car passing after the hit. looked pretty bad. he hit the Porsche in the right rear wheel and pushed the whole wheel and fender in pretty well. also drove them both down the hill to the left a good 50 yards.

The mustang driver - met him in the pits the day before. seemed like a nice guy and ironically enough, gave me a tech sheet because I forgot mine.

what happened - he told his garage-mate that his brakes failed. his garage mate is a friend of mine and said that the mustang had had brake problems the day before and the driver was working on them intermittently. that said, seemed to me from the video that his car decelerated quite well before he ran out of pavement, so not sure if the brake problem had anything to do with the accident.

Glad to hear the Porsche driver is OK. I had asked Mark at Watkins how he was and Mark said fine, but I did not know if that was the public CYA answer or not.

Shame the porsche was ruined. no way he saw that coming.

as for the event organizers - as others have echo'd, I've found Chin to be some of the most responsive organizers. they get on crazy behavior pretty quickly. if I fault them anywhere it would be being a little too tolerant of those that are slow to give a point by. that said, I'd never say the guy failing to give a point by is the cause for the accident. the over anxious driver needs to have the sanity to take a ride through the pits. I do it all the time.

38D

The Mustang brakes much later on the fateful lap (~1.5 vs all prior laps at the 3). That’s a big difference at 150+ mph. But I don’t see that he wasn’t driving so bad as to warrant torches and pitchforks; he just made a mistake which can happen to anyone.

RobertR1

Exactly. I pointed this out earlier but it was already hellfire and brimstone by then so why bother with factual analysis.

The Mustang driver made a mistake. I'm sure his reaction, LIKE THAT OF MANY DRIVERS, is to blame the equipment right after it happened but I would not be surprised that after settling down he realized that it was solely his error and that factored into his decision to walk away from the sport for a bit. At least I hope it did.

Coochas

Fair enough. But I’m still amazed by his description of the incident:

”The session, and my event, ended with a Black Flag when I was unable to adequately slow the car in the Brake Zone at the end of the back straight. I ended up leaving the track and then crossing back over it... in the process hitting a GT3.”

It’s like OJ killing Ron and Nicole and saying “my day ended with a routine traffic stop.”

dgrobs

Great analogy.....and funny to boot.

hf1

I would cut the guy some slack. He was probably still in shock right after the crash which would explain the description and the mere fact that he posted and commented about it all on YT. One bad judgment after another. When he regained some of his wits, he pulled everything off line where it should have stayed in the first place.

ExMB

IMHO that car and the driver should not have been on track if that statement is true. The driver should've realized that with an issue like that he potentially could put others in jeopardy. But it seems that he didn't think about the consequences; to him and others. Or that he cared.

That being said. I instructed a newbie at one event who misread his brake fluid, thinking C instead of F and we wound up having to bleed his brakes with fresh fluid. But he wasn't going near the speeds this driver was.

Thundermoose

I feel like we've went through the 7 stages of grief on this thread.

RobertR1

edit: removed

TXE36

IMO, this thread shows how important attitude and responsibility taking is. It's not that he made a mistake - we all make them - it's the after action cover up and blame deflection that gets under everyone's skin. Well, at least my skin.

Respect on the paddock requires owning one's mistakes, and frankly, that's one of the things that attracts me to this sport given the general lack of accountability that seems to be everywhere in society today. That no accountability crap doesn't fly here.

-Mike

Manifold

Continuing to track the car at full tilt with a known significant brake problem would be even worse than making an error in missing his brake point.