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Man, I feel terrible for that owner. It looks like he was OK. Wrecks happen, street and track. If a Z had to get hurt, at least it was one of the yellow ones.
Notice after the butt kicks to the right he reacts slowly to the car turning left and then overcorrects (steering angle to the right went to 146 degrees) and once that happened he had lost the car.
Along these lines, the other thing that I noticed is in combination with the right steering input, he completely lifted off the throttle and went to hard braking. That was a recipe for having a bad outcome.
lets not forget the track itself. willow is a pile of **** and it seems to get worse every year. some tracks in this region such as pahrump and chuckwalla are nice, and some are still **** such as big willow and buttonwillow. the tar snakes are particularly laughable, usually creating a bump of about a solid inch above the rest of the tarmac.
i think with the driver not being in a low gear at that moment, it was a combo of the track surface unsettling the car combined with imperfect alignment. anyone who tracks the Z should redo the alignment the week of, at the least, and perhaps give some thought to the sway bars, depending on how tight the track is. at least the guy got a story out of it and learned something, maybe he'll buy an already setup C6 or something and go back to the track soon. i admit i myself am paranoid, when i take my bike to the track i give it a full 2 laps of warmup.
Looking at how crushed the cabin is, those guys are lucky as **** to walk away. Maybe the guys in the C8 section proclaiming a HTC is safe to track " because it's built to the same safety standards as the coupe" should watch this video.
man, i feel terrible for that owner. It looks like he was ok. Wrecks happen, street and track. If a z had to get hurt, at least it was one of the yellow ones.
I’m am definitely NOT a track day expert so these are the comments of an absolute novice.
That was a real snap spin, is that a known issue for the ZO6 on cold tires?
At Spring Mountain drivers are told to hit the brakes once the car is totally lost, apparently it shortens the distance of the “event”, would that apply in this instance?
I noticed a yellow Hertz sticker on the lower right corner of the windshield, was this some sort of track day rental or was that just a holder for a temporary registration?
His tires were likely cold with how slow his pace was, plus 650tq instantaneously at a low speed will easily overpower the tires, plus being in PTM Sport 2 will let you get the car sideways. Going 0 to max brakes will shift a lot of weight forward and off of the rear tires, further exacerbating oversteer. Those spring mountain instructions may have been in a situation that you know is unrecoverable and you have plenty of lateral runoff. Otherwise it would be much more advantageous to have the weight neutral and get the car back under control.
I’m am definitely NOT a track day expert so these are the comments of an absolute novice.
That was a real snap spin, is that a known issue for the ZO6 on cold tires?
At Spring Mountain drivers are told to hit the brakes once the car is totally lost, apparently it shortens the distance of the “event”, would that apply in this instance?
I noticed a yellow Hertz sticker on the lower right corner of the windshield, was this some sort of track day rental?
Snap spins like that are well known for a lot of cars. We all see videos of that happening at cruise-ins multiple times per year across the country. The C7 has an adjustable rear caster that was added to correct the problem of changing the caster while increasing negative camber for track duty. Unlike the C5 and C6 rear suspensions, it has 4 adjustable points whereas the C6 widebody cars had 3 adjustable points while the C5s had one.
As for the spin the rule is when in a spin both feet in. If he had done that the car would have spun down the pavement or off the track to the left instead of going off the right side of the track. However, he had to do that as soon as the backend kicked to the right. His butt meter had to tell him the car is lost and then had to hammer the brake and clutch. Even then he may not have saved the car.
In this incident, the driver was behind the car with his reactions and overcorrected. The overcorrection is what caused the car to spin the other way. When you get into a spin like this and turn the steering into the spin to correct it takes a few moments for the car to react once that happens there is a momentary pause where the car stops sliding in the original sideways direction. When that pause occurs you don't want any more steering correction, otherwise, you will then swing back the other way when the pause ends.
The best way to practice this control is during autocrosses or driving on icy, slushy, or snowy roads where rear wheel drive slips and slides will happen at much lower speeds.
Man, I feel terrible for that owner. It looks like he was OK. Wrecks happen, street and track. If a Z had to get hurt, at least it was one of the yellow ones.
His tires were likely cold with how slow his pace was, plus 650tq instantaneously at a low speed will easily overpower the tires, plus being in PTM Sport 2 will let you get the car sideways. Going 0 to max brakes will shift a lot of weight forward and off of the rear tires, further exacerbating oversteer. Those spring mountain instructions may have been in a situation that you know is unrecoverable and you have plenty of lateral runoff. Otherwise it would be much more advantageous to have the weight neutral and get the car back under control.
You are correct, those Spring Mountain instructions applied when the situation was unrecoverable.
He had only gone 0.4 miles when the rear end broke loose. Cold tires definitely a big factor in this one. He was at full throttle when the rear broke loose. Should never go to full throttle on cold tires.
Looking at how crushed the cabin is, those guys are lucky as **** to walk away. Maybe the guys in the C8 section proclaiming a HTC is safe to track " because it's built to the same safety standards as the coupe" should watch this video.
The C6 and C7 both have a windshield frame that meets the federal rollover standards for sedans. Probably C8 also.
Those standards are really wimpy.
The coupe has the same W/S strength and adds the halo behind the occupants, not perfect but a big improvement.
Having seen a good number of C6/C7 pics of cars that rolled, most of the convertibles are really flattened, most of the coupes are badly distorted but still leaving some "head room".
Not always, but that's the way to bet.
In the case here, the passenger side was close to flat, but not quite. The driver side, back near the halo, much better.
Last edited by Gearhead Jim; 02-01-2022 at 08:16 PM.
Snap spins like that are well known for a lot of cars. We all see videos of that happening at cruise-ins multiple times per year across the country. The C7 has an adjustable rear caster that was added to correct the problem of changing the caster while increasing negative camber for track duty. Unlike the C5 and C6 rear suspensions, it has 4 adjustable points whereas the C6 widebody cars had 3 adjustable points while the C5s had one.
As for the spin the rule is when in a spin both feet in. If he had done that the car would have spun down the pavement or off the track to the left instead of going off the right side of the track. However, he had to do that as soon as the backend kicked to the right. His butt meter had to tell him the car is lost and then had to hammer the brake and clutch. Even then he may not have saved the car.
In this incident, the driver was behind the car with his reactions and overcorrected. The overcorrection is what caused the car to spin the other way. When you get into a spin like this and turn the steering into the spin to correct it takes a few moments for the car to react once that happens there is a momentary pause where the car stops sliding in the original sideways direction. When that pause occurs you don't want any more steering correction, otherwise, you will then swing back the other way when the pause ends.
The best way to practice this control is during autocrosses or driving on icy, slushy, or snowy roads where rear wheel drive slips and slides will happen at much lower speeds.
Bill
Mr. Dearborn has a good point here regarding icy, slushy roads and losing control of a vehicle. This is where the northern folks have a bit of an advantage over the southern folks when it comes to such situations. We drive 3-4 months on roads where at any given time you can find yourself sideways. It just becomes second nature to us after a while. When I am driving on these roads, I don't wonder if I am going to hit an icy patch, it's when. Your head has to be in the game at all times and know the proper response by reading what your vehicle is doing. I am just glad no one was seriously hurt.
I always stay in Sport1 and don't push it into the danger zone.
Same here.
This is an expensive lesson to learn but as a former HPDE instructor I guarantee the nannies are better at controlling the throttle then you.
The idea that you, the average Joe, can "save the car" is a fallacy. I've seen it all too many times at track days, even with very experienced drivers (ones way better then me). Everything just happens too fast and your reactions (or over-reactions) will not be adequate because you lack the muscle memory. Those too foolish to understand this are the ones that get in trouble.
This is an expensive lesson to learn but as a former HPDE instructor I guarantee the nannies are better at controlling the throttle then you.
The idea that you, the average Joe, can "save the car" is a fallacy. I've seen it all too many times at track days, even with very experienced drivers (ones way better then me). Everything just happens too fast and your reactions (or over-reactions) will not be adequate because you lack the muscle memory. Those too foolish to understand this are the ones that get in trouble.
The comment about muscle memory is key here. If you don't practice recovering from slides on a continual basis you will not have the muscle memory to recover from one the first time you do it. Just ask any of us that learned how to drive in winter conditions how we felt when the parents let us take the family car on a date when the snow was falling at a rate of 2 to 3 inches per hour and all they said was to go slow and you will be OK. My Dad didn't believe in snow tires. He said if the weather was bad enough to require snow tires then just use chains and the snow had to be really deep to use chains. I was slipping and sliding almost from the time I pulled away from the house. I got a lot of practice that night but didn't get stuck once.
01-31-2022, 10:39 PM
lol
Same here.