One Less Mustang

[OROutdoors]

So this holiday weekend, I'm visiting my sister in Auburn WA. She lives pretty close to the Pacific Speedway, and we can hear the cars in the distance. I decided to take my girls to see the "races". Actually, they are not really racing, they are driving fast in a controlled evnironment, only after having passed the driving school.

So we got there, saw lots of Miatas, some Corvettes, Mustangs, some made for racing cars that look sort of like PT Prowlers, a couple Lotus etc. As we were watching, this sweet new starts a turn, fish tales a little, so the driver corrects. But that sends the car towards the inner wall of a curve. The driver corrects again, missed the inner wall, but suddenly his car is way too far out of alignment, and heading for the outter wall. Attempting to rescue his car, he turns the wheel again, the wheels looses traction, and the car is suddenly in a sideways slide.

I yell "OH! NO!!!" a split second later, the car slides into the barracade, the barricade buckles, and snaps open. Chucks of cement flying every where. The car wasn't stopped, it pops itself vertically into the air, lands on top of the barricade, sliding to the other side, the front passenger grabs the barricade and spins the car around before tearing loos from the car and landing in the raceway. Immediately, the race steewards on on their radios calling for a medic and emergency crews, and a red flag goes up for the other drivers on the course. The drivers from the pit all come running.

It seem to take a long time for people to get to the car, and there was not movement coming from within the car. My girls are scared, so I gather them up and we say a prayer for the driver. People from the pits immediately begin asking questions, as I was the only person who was in the stands. "Is he okay?" "What happened?" "What about the car behind him? Did it get clipped?" I assumed that one was asked by a person who knew the driver that was following. After what seemed like too long, the emergency crew got there, wrestled the door open, the driver got out, and stood up, walked around.

The car was totaled. To bad too, because it looked like the owner had put a lot of money into the car, after market. After it was verified that the driver was not seriuosly injured and there was no fire, the lead instructor told all the drivers to go to the classroom for debrief. Not wanting to stick around, I put the kids into my car and headed back to home. As we were leaving, a firetruck arrived, presumably for the case of a fuel leak.

I tell me girls that this is why we only drive fast on courses -- because accidents can still happen, and if and when it does, we want it to be at the track, not in someone's livingroom.

[Whisper]

Wow, so this was a driving school or just lapping day, then? Man, that's rough. It's so cold now, I wonder if the track gets a bit of frost on it. Sounds like the driver either lifted of over-gassed through the turn. Was it turn 8? The big one before the turn into the straight?

[OROutdoors]

Wow, so this was a driving school or just lapping day, then? Man, that's rough. It's so cold now, I wonder if the track gets a bit of frost on it. Sounds like the driver either lifted of over-gassed through the turn. Was it turn 8? The big one before the turn into the straight?

It was the small turn right which leads into the straight. He crashed right infront of the stands. It was right in front of me. I had never before seen the likes of that. His car was completely toast.

I was on the 3rd seat up, in in the stands... From what I could tell, he made it through turn 8 without any problems. Most cars were approaching the last turn wide, and bringing it in close at the center of the turn, and then unsing the straight to finish -- like a good line would dictate. The stang was just fine until initiating the turn at the wide part.

I think it was lapping day... they were running cars in two heats. There was no frost on the track, as the day around 45 degrees, and had been run on for at least a half hour before. The track was dry too, hadn't rained for several days.