95jersey

My goal with this thread is not to scare anyone off, or bring up negative topics surrounding track days, but rather to use the wealth of knowledge on this forum to provide an open discussion about something we do not often talk about (WORST CASE SCENARIO).

To me, the worst case scenario means completely losing your brakes at high speed coming into a medium/low speed corner.

Take a look at this video. It has been around for some time.

http://home.comcast.net/~g5x3z06/vipercrash.mpeg

Now, obviously proper brakes, fluid, and maintenance are the most important thing we can do to our cars! I don't know what failed on this Viper or if the driver was at fault, but that's NOT the point of the conversation.

For whatever reason, if you are in situation where your brakes fail in this type of corner, what is the best course of action? Should you just take the impact head on like this guy? Or should you try and spin the car (like Johnny O'Connel did at Sebring last year) to reduce your speed and avoid a head on hit? Do you want to downshift and use the engine braking to assist? Emergency Brake? Is hitting a tire wall or any wall side ways or at an angle safer or more dangerous. Is there anything you can do?

Let's assume for discussion that the driver is wearing the typical saftey gear with a harness. Again, I'm not bringing up this topic to be morbid, but rather to understand what the best thing we can do (if any) in this situation.

0Randy@DRM

If you able to back it in that I think would be the best. Because the seat will help support the impact. Other that good luck and try to scrub speed anyway you can. I don't think side smacking in a street car would be good.

Randy

Wicked Weasel

The obvious answer is that you want to give yourself the most amount of time to deaccelerate. As the old joke says - it is not the fall that kills you, but instead it is the sudden stop.

This means avoiding any object that is stationary or will not absorb some of the impact. Hitting a tire wall would be better than hitting a brick wall. Hitting at an angle will most likely also absorp some of the initial impact.

Swinging your car around sounds like a good idea because it should slow your momentum down, but realistically how many people will be able to do that.

Down shifting will lock everything up. Not sure if someone can control that or not, but I would rather blow an engine and driveshaft then do nothing.

Maybe a combination of downshift and e-brake is good if you can manage that. It will all happen soo dam quick I am not sure if there is much time to consider choices.

danswofford

I tried an e-brake stop on the street once just to know how it would work. OK, I admit it, I was trying to do a crazy, Dukes of Hazzard, e-brake turn. And suprizingly nothing happened. I couldn't get the car to slow down at all. It was as if it was disabled while driving. And I really pulled up has hard as I could with one arm.

It works fine as a parking brake, but if that one experience I had is typical, don't expect the handbrake to haul you down from 140. Rubbing a foot Flintstones style would slow you down faster.

TedDBere

Once you realize it's going to happen I don't think there's much you can do. Johnny O'Connell lost his brakes with a lot of time to think. In that case anything you can do to slow the car down would be good.

I've always been told to let go of the steering wheel before impact so you don't break your fingers or wrists. Any truth to this?

95jersey

Every situation will be different, but I will say after years of instruction and attending HPDE's, I am definately more cool headed in bad situations. Before I did HPDE's, in a street accident, I would just lock up the brakes and ram whatever was in my way...I didn't know any better, or I didn't really understand car control at that time

One year, I spun out at Watkins Glen going into the bus stop pretty darn fast, and on instinct, I remembered "both feet in"! We'll it work, to my suprise I never left the asphalt of the track, didn't really go very far, and when I came to a stop the engine was still runing . Other than a flat spotted set of tires and a bruised ego, the years of instruction at other HPDE's worked!

My point is, that even in this guys (Viper) situation, he had time to try something to aviod such a brutal impact. I did not see him try the e-brake, but it looked like he was going to try and turn the car, but then got spooked about that manuever, and decided to take the impact strait on. I wonder how much e-brake and downshift would have helped?

wtknght1

The ebrake will do you no good. But if you can scrub speed anyway possible, do it. Pitch the car around if possible and/or look for the softest thing to hit - tire walls are wonderful. If you have the time and can think that fast, try to find a lower gear to keep scrubbing speed. Generally speaking though, there's just not a whole lot you can do. Man, what a morbid topic.

Wicked Weasel

Wicked Weasel

As noted training is everything. It teaches many of us to not panic in a situation which gives us an opportunity to look for the best resolution to maybe resolve the situation.

this is primary the reason I am going to Spring Mountain. I am not just hoping to learn how to go fast around a track, but I am also hoping to learn what the car feels like when you lose control and how to work with the car to get it back.

95jersey

We'll, if we walk away from this thread with just a little more insight into what our options would be, I think it was worth it for everyone.

gonzalezfj

I agree that downshifting and tossing the car are good ideas, but after doing any of that I would want to make sure I hit the tire barrier head on. That way I can make use of the long crush space carefully engineered into the car by its designers. Also, the airbag is optimally positioned to cushion a head-on impact.

If this driver had turned the car to the left and hit the wall sideways, I would expect his passenger would not have walked away unscathed as the video shows. No crush space in the side of the car.
Traveling well into triple-digit territory, there's not too much time to think, but survival demands that you do the right thing, by instinct if necessary.

Hope it never happens to anybody, but it can...

Frank

vms4evr

Interesting question. You typically hear - "both feet in, steering wheel straight". I guess that is the simplest answer. Probably the easiest to do to brace for impact.

Given a street car with an air bag system. If you know you are going to hit hard due to brake failure. Wouldn't you want to point it straight at the softest thing you can find and let the air bag do the job it is supposed to do?

Dropping it to the next lower gear (which might spin the car) or deliberately rotating the car to get it to spin and scrub speed. Only drawback to that is if you're leaving the track and it is not a nice level surface you may catch a tire and get airborne. Now you're going to hit hard and you maybe sideways or worse, inverted... I think the air bag will become useless or detrimental.

They used to call those things Emergency Brakes because they actually helped slow the car down some. Now they are nothing more than a Parking Brake. If it holds your car still parked on a hill in neutral it has done its job. Anything beyond that is purely a bonus.

John Shiels

You risk not backing it in if you try, and the car is stronger nose first. In the viper accident shown he was in the dirt before he had much time scrub speed. When you get used to accidents and close calls thing move in slow motion and you will not I had some hum-dingers in offshore boats and it seemed like slow motion. Stuffed/submerged a Skater cat at near 100 and I watched the water come up the deck over the canopies. I new when exactly to take the last breath. I rolled in one in New Orleans and was tossed out it was slow motion and I remember seeing things as I flew through the air. I don't actually remember leaving the seat. That is the only black spot.

I was a passenger in a SUV towing my boat and it rolled and I was lying down in the back seat. I went out the back window at about 50 MPH and landed on I-95. My insatnt reaction was get off the pavement and run towards the green. I didn't even think grass just green. Then I checked my head for injuries as I hit the grass. I was looking for wet spots.

You reaction should come automatically before you think. There is no time to think. Do you think which way to turn the wheel in the snow or rain? It just happens on auto.

0Randy@DRM

For a back up setup you can use one of these.
http://www.peytonperformance.com/ite...te--42020.html
I would think the chute would slow a car down pretty fast.

Randy
PS the guy driving behide you wouldn't know what the hell was going on.

95jersey

[QUOTE=vms4evr]Wouldn't you want to point it straight at the softest thing you can find and let the air bag do the job it is supposed to do?
QUOTE]

If you are positioned correctly in a 5 or 6 point harness, the airbag is almost worthless. When I strap myself in, I am in tight with no movement, unlike a traditional set belt. I don't think the airbag will do anything?

sefa01

[QUOTE=95jersey]Probably true. Also, if you don't have a passenger, remember to turn off the passenger air bag. It could save you $1,500 to $2,000 if you do have an accident.

Falcon

As a point of possible clarification, I'm not too sure that guy in the video lost his brakes.

That video is of Turn 1 at CMP and many of us on this forum are very familiar with it. If you notice, the guy is mid-track instead of track right and he hasn't even started his downshifting procedure when the turn shows up.

He was just plain late on the brakes and out of position on the track. The result speaks for itself.

Turn one at CMP is one of the few there that has no escape route. One of the first things I learned at HPDE's was to search and determine escape routes at every turn. Know where it is safe to drive when an off inevitible. Make sure you go through this in your mind time after time.

I'm like many of you guys, if an off is impossible to avoid, go off straight and let the air bag and built in crumple zone do their work and pray for the best. If it's possible to spin the car while on track, do that because it'll sure scrub off speed. In that case your decision has to be instant and right, there is no second chance to get it right.

Man, I was planning a great weekend at Road Atlanta! Now I'll have this on my mind . And R/A has few if any escape routes!

vms4evr

That would also assume you have a Hans or some other device. I beleive the air bag will also help stop you from breaking your neck...

Again, it is going to depend on what you have in your car beyond the factory 3-point and a helmet.

astock165

But what about with a full face helmet? I would think it's a detriment. All I can think of is the helmet moving on your head and the inside smacking your face.

John Shiels

I had a low speed bump in a regular Olds rental. Air bag seemed to me no big deal. I was far from hurting my face or neck.