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Life on mismatched tires, or "how not to get to Las Vegas"
As those of you who attended the Vegas event know, I had a run-in on the 15 south of Vegas that resulted in needing a new tire, but I didn't go into a ton of detail since that wasn't the point of being there.
I was still on the California side of the border, doing a decent but not irresponsible clip in the fast lane, tracking a Hellcat that had been in front of me for half an hour. Unfortunately, Mr. Mopar decided to check his iPhone and drifted off into the soft shoulder next to the #1 lane (the northbound side of the highway in this spot is only 2 lanes wide, plus an exit ramp that was just opening ahead on the right, with sandy shoulders on both the left and right sides) and kicked up what I am pretty certain was an ATV driveshaft (or a driveshaft housing) or the axle for one side of a car hauler/dolly trailer.
Whatever it was, I gauged it to be 2" diameter, thick walled enough to think "dang, that sucker is THICK", and 12-14" long. Don't be crass.
I see Hellcat clip this thing, then he jerks the wheel, almost spins off to the right, and the thing I'll henceforth call "the pipe" dribbled up and down between the asphalt and the bottom of the Hellcat for what seemed an absurdly long time. At one point, the Hellcat's left rear wheel pops up off the ground and out shoots the pipe.
Pretty much all I had time to do was a poor man's pitch-and-catch - I twitched the wheel as hard as I dared right and back again just as quickly. The pipe hit the outside lip of the driver front wheel traveling almost exactly in the same direction of travel at a greatly reduced speed. Through some combination of good fortune and 20+ years and counting of a good Christian wife praying nightly for her heathen husband's eternal salvation, the pipe punched through the tire tread, folded the shoulder down against the lip of the wheel hard enough to punch an EXIT hole through the sidewall, and then took a pretty decent ding out of the wheel.
And then it skittered off harmlessly into the weeds into the sandy center median. Hellcat's eyes look like cartoons; he is frozen in fear (or, more likely, too busy defecating to react). I checked my blind spot, bailed off off at the upcoming exit that was now probably 50 yards ahead (but I've bled off half my speed by now without scaring the hell out of people behind me). At the top of this desolate desert offramp, in 60+ MPH, 100-degree F wind, I cursed John Ireland and changed onto my damnable compact spare.
Part two of this tale begins the next morning at Discount Tire. Unfortunately, my Hankooks are not available anywhere in stock in Vegas, and no other Discount has anything else the right size except...a set of spongy ExtremeContact DWS 05's. I managed to not do anything stupid while driving on this mess; I need to get across the street to my man at my local Discount and see if he'll help me out. They have ALWAYS been amazing, so I'll take whatever I get.
The side marker was knocked free, and both the plastic molded clip at the front and the spring clip were missing. The dangling side marker whacked some scratches into the fender, but nothing I can't polish out. Well, if I ever polished the car.
Better than the orange donut.
After punching through approx. 20-25mm of rubber, kevlar, and whatever else shoulder and tread compounds are made of, the pipe still had enough kinetic energy to take this chunk out of the rim. Note the volume of the displaced material...I was glad to not take this in the face.
So, really, I had a stellar excuse to order a drink when I finally abandoned the car - with a nasty, dirty, flat tire in the passenger seat - with the hapless valet. "Good luck. Oh, the turn signals don't work. And don't touch the hazard switch (someone got a little overzealous with the relay troubleshooting). Oh, and that wheel's going to fall over on you as soon as yo...oh. Never mind.
Getting this photo, and the one in my sigpic, were worth the trip - getting to meet a bunch of Grade A Rennlisters was icing on the cake.
Ouch, but no one hurt, no lawyers involved, so it's just time and money to resolve. Worst case is a new rim and two new front tires depending on how new the other side is, and if you can still get a match.
Every time I replay it in my mind, I envision that hunk of metal clearing the hood and coming through the steering wheel into my chest, or neck, or the bridge of my nose. It's actually a little haunting, but a great excuse for some therapeutic libation.
The car doesn't have a scratch, I don't have a scratch, and nobody else on the freeway freaked out and killed anyone. I don't even begrudge the $200 for a tire I desperately want to be rid of.
Between work and marriage, I've felt fortunate. I am now starting to wonder if I might actually be somewhat lucky.
Keep an eye on the papers. I'm pretty sure I just sealed my fate via some Bugs Bunny-esque safe falling from the sky, or a Wile. E. Coyote ACME invention will be streaking across the horizon heralded only by the forlorn "meep, meep" of doom. If you see a distant, dusty, cartoony mushroom cloud, that was me. *poof*
Every time I replay it in my mind, I envision that hunk of metal clearing the hood and coming through the steering wheel into my chest, or neck, or the bridge of my nose. It's actually a little haunting, but a great excuse for some therapeutic libation.
The car doesn't have a scratch, I don't have a scratch, and nobody else on the freeway freaked out and killed anyone. I don't even begrudge the $200 for a tire I desperately want to be rid of.
Between work and marriage, I've felt fortunate. I am now starting to wonder if I might actually be somewhat lucky.
Keep an eye on the papers. I'm pretty sure I just sealed my fate via some Bugs Bunny-esque safe falling from the sky, or a Wile. E. Coyote ACME invention will be streaking across the horizon heralded only by the forlorn "meep, meep" of doom. If you see a distant, dusty, cartoony mushroom cloud, that was me. *poof*
Freeway debris is scary stuff.
I was driving my 83 GTI back from Mexico once. FINALLY agreed to let my friend drive for a while because I exhausted. I went to sleep in the back and 5 minutes after woke up when the car came to a stop on the shoulder. Front windshield was a spider web - a 3 foot long metal bar had fallen from a truck, bounced a few times, and smashed into the glass, lengthwise.
If it had spun another 30 degrees it would have come through and impaled my friend in the chest like that priest in The Omen.
I once dodged a flying sheet of plywood. While on my motorcycle. That got the adrenaline pumping.
There seemed to be a lot of random debris on the freeways around downtown LV, so I think we're pretty fortunate that there weren't any more similar incidents.
Oh, and I have a spare orange side marker if you'd like it
06-13-2017, 08:30 PM
Life on mismatched tires, or "how not to get to Las Vegas"
