993PET

During qualifing for the NASA sprint race on Saturday morning at Mid-Ohio, I was on a slow lap looking for a gap to improve my time. Ahead of me a 944 Turbo (GT SU Car) blew it's engine and dumped oil across the end of the back straight through turn 7, I arrived on the scene before the corner workers reacted to the situation. One car span in front of me, avoiding him caused me to spin into the grass on the inside, at that point I was just along for the ride. I hit wall on the passenger side rear first and the came to rest on the passenger side front. I was uninjured, I wish I could say the same for my car! I already delivered the car to the body shop, I'm sure the $$$ is going to be painful. Wrong place wrong time I guess!

FrankyV

Sorry for the bad turn of events, I hope all else is well with you. My own track and road experiences this summer have taught me that anything can happen at any time to anyone. Guess this means we won't be seeing you at NJMP next month?

993PET

Hi Frank:

Good to hear from you. I guess if you race often enough and long enough, it's not a case of if but when something like this is going to happen. It looks like the car is going to be out of commission for at least a month. I hoping to make Road America in September but that may be optomistic. I delivered the car to Joel Reiser in Rochester, NY yesterday. He will be supervising the body repairs and putting the car back together.

Take Care

JF

Mark in Baltimore

At Watkins Glen, my rookie race, a car dropped oil in the esses. My car yawed right and then left but through a tiny bit of skill and some dumb luck, I managed to catch it. John Colasante was not so lucky and badly banged up his pretty 964 cup car against the blue bushes. Scared the crap out of me.

disasterman

Joe, sorry for the damage but as you are well aware, I know how it feels.

M758

That stinks. Feel bad for you. - Crap can happen any time even through little to know fault of your own.


However it looks like the car is still driveable. Looks cosmetic to me. I know for my if that happens if I get the wheels to to run and the it is just bent sheet metal I will still be running on track. I will fix the dents later.

993PET

Are you talking about the dents on your car from the April race start? Not quite in the same league as this. Let's compare bills when my car is back together and if you remember that contact cost my an $1100 wheel and no race.

JF

M758

I think you thinking of some else. No dents from my April race. I did nose in to a tire wall in Feb. That was the last race of the day so I went home but had it been saturday I would have pulled things out get back running on Sunday.

I guess my point was it looks cosmetic. That is good if it is only body work rather than suspension or frame damage. I don't know for sure. However if my 944 suffered similar damage I would fixe what I could an still race. I back in 2003 I went off Turn 9 a Willow Springs and hit a berm 100 yard off track. Tore up the left front suspension so bad the car would not roll. This happen on lap 2 of qualfing. Thanks to a spare control arm from a friend I made the race 3 hrs later and won from Pole. That was saturday and I won again on sunday.

Anyway.. good luck on your repairs. Again sorry to see it happen.

993PET

Joe P:

Sorry for the confusion I was replying to to Disasterman when you posted. We had a little coming together at Mid-Ohio in April.

JF

M758

Ok make sense now. $1100 wheel. Dang. My biggest expense from my tire wall incident was the $200 I need to replace the flat spotted tire.

Hope it is not the worst.

bobt993

Yep that sucks, looks like you will need some rear suspension, wheel bearings, motor mount fenders repaired and a wheel out of round.

John H

That shouldn't be too bad cost-wise. I always took the time to locate used parts myself to help keep repair costs down. My car is at the shop now to fix my June 2009 mishap at VIR. Took me a year to locate "affordable" parts and get around to taking it in for the repairs.

Potomac-Greg

Damage like that on a 944 spec /cup car is just a bit of "patina" right? ;-)

M758

I would not call it patina, but incidents like that in a 944 make you relived that you drive a old cheap car.

That is the thing about track driving and racing. Crap happens. It is pretty rare for the most part, but it can happen. If can happen becuse you as a driver are stupid, a fellow racer is stupid you just by bad luck. In the end damage is damage and it is the best reason to track cheap car instead of nice shinny street car. That and if some thing happens a full cage and proper safety gear are really nice to have.

ilko

Sorry to hear, glad you're ok!

That looks exactly the same as my old 964 did after an incident at Lime Rock a few years ago. Same exact situation too. Guy in front of me dumped his oil and the rest is history. Only I ended up going backwards, hit the driver side rear corner in the armco, bounced a little hit the front driver side, then crossed the track and bumped against the armco one more time. I ended up parting the car as it was worth more in pieces...

Honestly, I don't think the repairs are going to be cheap. You look like you hit the rear end harder than I hit mine. Is the engine running OK? Any oil dripping?