I was at Lime Rock yesterday, and spun going through the Left Hander (Esses).
What happened was, I braked late going into the Left Hander, which pushed my turn-in point farther to the right of the track than normal. I modified my line so that I would hit the apex/track out point on the left side of the track, which brought me over the the concrete patche at a different angle than in my previous laps. I was at near or maximum lateral grip, as I had done in this section throughout the day. As you can hear from my engine tone in the video, I very gently began rolling on the throttle when I saw I would make the apex. Everything was fine until my rear tires hit the rumble patch, at which point the rear slid out HARD to the right. While I was able to catch the initial slide, it slid out from under me fast enough that I got a pretty decent slip angle - past that seat-of-the-pants point when I knew that the car would snap back around HARD. Sure enough, the car snapped right back around and overshot to the left again. I caught that spin, but then the car rebounded hard enough to spin me a full 360 degrees. I caught that spin perfectly, pointing straight ahead and moving at ~20mph. I could have continued on the track, but there was a Corvette close behind me and I wanted to quickly get out of its way for safety.
So the question of course is, why did my car spin? I believe it was the result of several factors which compounded each other. The main issue was that I lost traction when the rears hit the concrete. You can tell because the squealing begins just after the concrete patch goes under my car. This in and of itself was a bit of a surprise to me - I’ve experienced those patches become slick in the wet, but have never noticed any difference between them and the pavement in the dry. I was skirting with the edges of the friction circle throughout this section, and right before I spun I was probably just at 3:30 on the friction circle. As the audio shows, I was on the gas very slightly - just rolling it on carefully to control the balance of the car. Normally, my Miata is VERY predictable and responsive at the limit - I’ve always known exactly when the rear starts to kick out, and correcting is extremely easy. As such, when I didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary as I applied power, I continued to gradually roll on the throttle. The problem was that rear went from having the perfect amount of traction to suddenly not having enough traction, which is why the rear kicked out so fast and with no warning whatsoever. Read the rest of this entry »
Jerry Seinfeld reportedly crashed near his home in East Hampton, New York when the brakes in his 1967 Fiat BTM failed. Seinfeld tried to use the emergency brake, to no avail, then swerved to avoid flying into an intersection. The Fiat rolled over and came to rest upside down, but Seinfeld was able to walk away unscathed. East Hampton Police Chief Todd Sarris said that Seinfeld’s maneuver “probably avoided a serious accident.” While the chief did not elaborate on what type of accident would be worse than one where a car comes to rest on its roof, this writer hereby vows never to drive within 100 miles of Sarris.
The crash was attributed to mechanical failure, and no citations were issued. Seinfeld was quoted as saying, “because I know there are kids out there, I want to make sure they all know that driving without braking is not something I recommend, unless you have professional clown training or a comedy background, as I do.”
When told about the incident, a Fiat spokesman expressed surprise that only two of the systems on Seinfeld’s Fiat had failed. “Cars are very complicated pieces of machinery,” he explained, “and even today, cars routinely leave the Fiat factory with far more than two issues.” While the spokesman found it “regrettable” that the two systems that failed were related and ended in a major accident, he stated that the incident “is in no way indicative of any larger quality control issues at Fiat. Fiat always has, and always will, stand behind its products 90%.”
Heres a video of me ice racing in my Saturn. This was probably the 3rd lap of the race of the day. For some reason, my front tires caught on the something sticky going through the esses, and I began to fishtail. Let’s just say it was a bit of downward spiral after tha…
Just my luck that I’d hit the ONE tiny, bit of the track with too much traction!
My roommate was nagging me to go skiing today. He got some deal through Ski Market where they gave you a discount on the lift ticket and bussed you up to Sugarbush. I declined, as I didn’t feel like getting up at 5 in the morning. As it turned out, I made the correct choice, while my roommate did not. The bus got almost there - almost there - when they had a slight difficulty:
Before you say “well, it was snowing, and these things do happen when it snows,” allow me to bring your attention to this sign:
This photo is officially the worst traffic jam I have ever seen at an intersection:
There are certainly worse traffic jams in terms of sheer volume. Take a ride on Route 128 outside of Boston during rush hour, and you’ll see what I mean. The beauty of this particular traffic jam is that it manages to COMPLETELY block the intersection without any accident. Traffic is literally locked up. Most traffic jams stem from a bottleneck issue of some sort, such as lanes merging or a poorly timed traffic light. People can get through as normal, just not at a very fast rate.
Not so with this traffic jam. The only way this jam will end is if a few people on the edges abort and let other cars through.
I’ve owned a lot of cars at this point in my life. No fewer than ten vehicles have come into my ownership in the past decade, most of which were beaters, and all of which had between 75k and 175k miles on them. Fully 30% of the vehicles I have owned have been Mazda Proteges of between 130k and 170k. Every one of those Proteges has had some kind of unacceptable corrosion above and beyond the norm for a New England vehicle of similar age and mileage. Some examples would include:
rusted, leaking gas tank
excessive underbody rust/rot
structrual unibody rust with holes — rear strut towers, trunk
It is no secret that Noah and Clint are quicker with the camera than me. The car-carrier which smashed one of its cars into a bridge, the lovely moose spoiler, and the guy who drives around with his seatbelt dragging are all examples of the pictures they have taken of the the splendid failures of others. Well it kills me to see the ridiculing of others and not be a part, and I don’t have the patience to wait around for failure to happen. So, I decided to go onto YouTube and find the most unreasonable car video I could to share with everybody.
Well, as it turns out, if you are willing to follow the suggested links from each video deeper and deeper you get some pretty spectacular results. I had enough candidates that I’m going to try and make a habit of posting these over the next few weeks. So with that, I present YouTube Failure #1: Dancing Miata.
This video has a collection of factors which made it my first pick to highlight as a YouTube failure. Read the rest of this entry »
An MX6.com forum user by the name of “copex” has welded additional blades onto his turbine wheel, claiming that it lowers spool-up:
I took off my old T3/T04e 57trim and welded 1/2 of the fins (not fully closed shut as you can see) on the hotside used to spool @ 3000rpm & get 5psi @4000rpm now only 2400rpm & get 5psi by 3500rpm.
way more torque(throttle response was amazing too) @ around 2000 rpm it feelz like my dads supercharged v8 now ^^…. weight increase by a total of 3.5grams (6 fins) + maybe 2-3 more grams from the stainless steel weld spots (pic was taken when finz had minimal weld spots). btw it has a bit of the whining sound when spooling … I like it alot but letz see how long it’ll last.
We’ll ignore his ricer internet lingo for a moment. As you might expect, the sensible and intelligent people on MX6 forums explained all of the failure and idiocy inherent in tack-welding fins onto a turbine wheel. Evidently copex has a history of what he calls “half-assed jobs”–and this is just one.
Here is the full thread. There is some risk of it getting deleted, but don’t worry. The Pansy Patrol is working to rehost the thread.
South of Boston, MA-Hundreds of passers-by slowed to point and laugh heartily at a trucker who blasted into an overpass on interstate 495, just south of Rt. 24. The truck was carrying upwards of 5 cars, and the topmost one was just high enough to strike the bottom of the overpass. The impact was extreme and sent the car hurtling off the trailer and down to the ground. Damage was considerable and the car is not expected to survive.
The driver, who was unharmed, and his truck (which was similarly unharmed), were not available for comment. Neither were the officials at the scene, as they were too busy herding the gawkers around the carnage. However, we were able to get a few comments from some of the others involved.
“I’m not quite sure how this stuff happens,” said the overpass, which was shaken emotionally but did not sustain any physical injuries. “I’m here all the time. And, a long time ago, someone put up some signs up the road a piece that said exactly how high I was. It’s not like I can get out of the way, and I have a right to be here.” The overpass went on to say that some of his colleagues on Storrow Drive have been victims of the same crime.
Friends of the unidentified victim were visibly distraught: “I’ve never liked riding up here,” said a dark-colored SUV that had been sitting directly behind the victim. There’s a reason England’s the only country who insists on having double-decker buses. Would you feel safe up here?”
The driver of the truck is expected to be charged with cruelty to an overpass and the destruction of one crappy and boring SUV.
