Warning - Must Read

[JJT]

True story- I spent 2hrs saturday while firemen cut my friend out form under his dashboard which shattered his thigh bone and yes he was driving a 1998 sir. The moral is he was going way too fast around a corner (with stock suspension) let off the gas which caused the back of the car to kick out, lost all control and cut a lampost in half. It was an awful site and the car was completely wrecked. He lived thanks to seatbelts and airbags. I also drive an hatchback sir with full suspension and the same thing happened to me but instead of staying off the gas I floored it and luckily got away. Stock Civics are faster than their ability to handle and much faster that they are strong so be careful.

[Johnny Tran]

Originally posted by JJT
True story- I spent 2hrs saturday while firemen cut my friend out form under his dashboard which shattered his thigh bone and yes he was driving a 1998 sir. The moral is he was going way too fast around a corner (with stock suspension) let off the gas which caused the back of the car to kick out, lost all control and cut a lampost in half. It was an awful site and the car was completely wrecked. He lived thanks to seatbelts and airbags. I also drive an hatchback sir with full suspension and the same thing happened to me but instead of staying off the gas I floored it and luckily got away. Stock Civics are faster than their ability to handle and much faster that they are strong so be careful.

Thats with any car...I'm sorry to hear about your friend, but when people don't know how to handle a car, or understand what its capable of things like that happen.

[sm00diver]

hope ur friend gets better dude. yea ppl gota know there limits and stick to them, this happens all the time. ppl just gotta figure.

peace

[Haunter]

Ouch... My condolences to your friend. This is exactly why I went to Bondurant... If you're going to drive like a racecar driver you might as well learn how a racecar driver drives. One of the fundamentals they taught us was to listen to the car. If you're too tired or angry or distracted to listen to the feedback from the seat and the steering wheel etc. then you shouldn't be driving. Not too long ago I watched a friend of a friend do something like this out in the desert; his was a bit stupider though (I learned later that he had been having issues with his gf right before this but still).

I race through this area pretty reguraly when I'm in that kinda mood. So I'm quite familiar with this road, I know the turns and the speeds and where the turns are going to lead to. Now there's this one turn that cuts to the right that is a real b*tch. It cuts to the right quite sharply coming up out of a dip. That leads it the road radiusing out for about 10-20ft. Then it reradiuses back in again (at a sharper angle then the first part). This turn surprised me the first time I drove the road, but I was scouting the location and was able to recover. Now this guy has been out to this spot a few times with us before. I've warned him about this turn. He drives a 97 'lude with eibach sportline springs that have it dropped fairly low (wheels just barely tuck). I don't know if it's just that 'ludes can't turn or what but this car understeers like a cow. I tell him it's the suspension geometry from the drop but according to him his camber isn't off, it's just the way 'ludes are.

I go through the turn, going about 55 (I was pushing it on my stock ek suspension). I pull back around and park off in the parking and then he makes his run. I can tell as he comes towards the turn that he's going too fast and he's not slowing down at all... He goes into the turn at 75 or 85 mph and then the brake lights flare on and I hear something screaming and his car just slides forward. It looked like he locked the front brakes going through the turn.

His car hits a rock first and lunges upward into the desert that borders the road. I see an ocotillo get flattened to the ground beneath his car and cactus flies everywhere. A dust cloud obscures the rest. We chased after him, following a trail of broken off parts, mowed down bushes, scraped up rocks, and cactus fragments. About a 1/3 of a mile later we find him walking around his car furiously. Amazingly he escaped without any harm. His car however was a totally different story. Just thinking of the sight still spooks me. The whole thing was just beaten to hell. The windshield was entirely spiderwebbed and bent in, the front bumper and one of the headlights was missing. I handed him one of the side mirrors that had been broken off and he threw it inside the car in disgust. One side of the car was completly on the ground and his massive exhaust was stuffed with dirt.

And you know what was the worst part of it? His insurance company refused to total out the car! It's been over seven months since this happened and he still doesn't have his car running right. It spent three months in the bodyshop and it just went back in for what will probably be another month of repairs. He was lucky enough to escape alive and unharmed but he came really close to having his car flip over and roll through the desert.

Just as sm00diver said, you HAVE to know your limits...

[97CIVICoupe]

Sorry to hear about that..

Not to change topic, but Haunter.. just curious, which course did you take at Bondurant? I was there 2 years ago..

[Haunter]

The three day High Speed driving course and one of the shifter kart classes. I wasn't too thrilled about being limited to the GT's, but if you can control a mustang at high speeds then you can control just about anything I went there the same summer you went, I was there at the very end of may/beginning of june I think. I've definitly been saving money since then to go back for the full four day course where you drive the formula fords and have the full race on your last day. Which course did you do?

[Stock?]

damn that sucks dude :

[Targa250R]

Originally posted by JJT
The moral is he was going way too fast around a corner (with stock suspension) let off the gas which caused the back of the car to kick out, lost all control and cut a lampost in half. It was an awful site and the car was completely wrecked.

That's a handling characteristic of the FF drivetrain layout.

The moral should be: Don't drive like a lunatic on public roads - save it for an autocross or take it to the track.

He lived thanks to seatbelts and airbags. I also drive an hatchback sir with full suspension and the same thing happened to me but instead of staying off the gas I floored it and luckily got away. Stock Civics are faster than their ability to handle and much faster that they are strong so be careful.

I'm glad to hear that he wasn't injured any more, and I wish him well for his recovery.

The faster you go, the more your reaction time, handling, and emergency maneuvering capabilities decrease. This is true with any car, not just the Civic.

[97CIVICoupe]

Originally posted by Haunter
The three day High Speed driving course and one of the shifter kart classes. I wasn't too thrilled about being limited to the GT's, but if you can control a mustang at high speeds then you can control just about anything I went there the same summer you went, I was there at the very end of may/beginning of june I think. I've definitly been saving money since then to go back for the full four day course where you drive the formula fords and have the full race on your last day. Which course did you do?

I was there in December.. But actually, I didn't take any specific course. My grandfather won a trip to AZ through his company (I live in PA) and he took me with him. As part of the trip, we spent a day at Bondurant with others that went on the trip, and did a bunch of the driving exercises/auto-x activities, drove the briggs and stratton (non-shifter) karts, and took the GT's out on the track for a while. It was still the most fun/best experience I've had, and I'm absolutely dying to go back. I'm trying to go this summer, but I don't know if I'll be able to.