Rob in VA

very cool.

Rceron

Glad to see you are ok. Good to see some posts from you again.

rlets

That is great racing in your Saturday vid!

Rich

mkd944

Sorry for the loss of your car and glad that you are ok. VIR ate my 968 in 2007. Probably close to that same point except on the other side of that wall. Went off in the climbing esses probably close to 150 meters backwards across the grass into the wall.

white924s

Ouch, sorry to see that.

Out of curiosity, I have a couple questions about taking your hands off the wheel - when should you do that? What I'm trying to get at is when do you say "I'm going to hit and can't do anything to stop that?"

Also, why is it a good idea to take your hands off the wheel? Is the reasoning that if your hands are tucked then they're farther away from things that could impact them and break bones?

Sorry if these are covered elsewhere or the answers seem obvious to everyone else, but I know my instinct wouldn't be to take my hands off the wheel so I want to understand the reason for doing that in order to learn (and hopefully prepare myself in case stuff hits the fan, so to speak).

Thanks!

Air-21

Glad to see you are OK, a little water is an understatement, a kayak could have been used down the back straight.

Jimbo951

White924:

When the car impacts the wall, the front tires take the impact and the force will violently backdrive the steering wheel. If you have your hands on the wheel, you're likely to break your thumbs.

disasterman

Glad you are ok. Another check in the "wait til it's warmer" column regarding spring racing, for me anyway.

ProCoach

Unfortunately, the longer I do this, the more empirical evidence I have to support the two proper autonomic responses when it becomes clear that you are on a trajectory to hit something hard. Concrete, another car or tire walls.

As we've seen in HANS demonstration videos (and Rob's accident), no matter how tight the belts are, the body is going to continue to move when the car stops. The car is also going to absorb some of that shock, but not most of it, which means it's going to transfer that impact through to the wheels and pedals (?!?!).

It's best practices to bring your hands away from the wheel and consciously release the force off your brake pedal foot (and left foot) before impact. If you're on any sort of angle, make sure to take your hands off the wheel. During normal driving, many people lock their thumbs (as I do) over the cross bar on the wheel. If the wheel were to violently move, that would be a problem. Also, your upper body is going to move forward and you want no tension stress on shoulders, forearms or wrists and hands. By grabbing the shoulder belts, you eliminate that risk.

As far as your feet go, it's easy to try and press the brake pedal through the floor in these instances (), but that's not a good thing when the car stops. In purpose built cars like my sports racers, there are numerous examples of the "Lola limp," where drivers have pushed hard against the pedals at the point of impact and had the pedals come back and break their ankles/feet. I remember a race not terribly long ago at Road Atlanta where someone broke their left ankle/foot when the wheel house came in on their dead pedal. Not cool.

Correct.

kurt M

Most modern steering systems don't transmit energy directly back. Still need to remove hands from wheel and feet from pedals. Your arms and legs have enough mass to break your fingers and feet from G force alone without the car helping. Watch the F1 drivers when they hit the wall. Just before impact then fold up crossing arms, right hand across left belt and vice versa. I am starting to think that it is best to place your feet off the pedals and flat on the fire wall. If left loose they will gather energy as they fly foward and they, and everything else, will fly in the direction of the impact. I added leg boards to the drivers side with just enough space for my feet to sit flat on the reinforced firewall/footwell. (thinking anything other than "Oh S***!!!" when heading into the tirewall is another thing)

Can't get to it from work comp but there is a Danica Patrick video of her hitting the wall and she fights then folds up using good form.

sbelles

Conditions like that are tough to mitigate but I can't figure out why they haven't done something about the river that crosses the backstretch for hours after a good rain. During a storm, just after you navigate that, the wind usually hits you and moves you over a couple of car widths on it's own.

Gary R.

Yeah, there's a section of track at Thunderbolt that can be "running water" wet 12 hours after a good heavy rain too....

ProCoach

Afraid that that is a common problem. You should have seen Road Atlanta this past weekend...

Veloce Raptor

Yes, and the one between T4 and the track out of T5 was similarly Code Brown inducing as this scene:

sbelles

I know. I also know that normal rainwater mitigation contouring doesn't work well with race cars but it just seems like the issue at VIR could be pretty easily solved with a drain tile or something