okay, so I had a kart race today, and I had my brakes fail (line got a hole in it, fluid was gone after a lap of racing) at the fastest part of the track, not alot of fun. I always saw brake failure as one of my biggest fears when racing, so I'm rather curious as to what other people fear when they get out on the track.
Jake

okay, so I had a kart race today, and I had my brakes fail (line got a hole in it, fluid was gone after a lap of racing) at the fastest part of the track, not alot of fun. I always saw brake failure as one of my biggest fears when racing, so I'm rather curious as to what other people fear when they get out on the track.
Jake

Just had the same thing happen to me on the highway the other day. I'd hate to have that happen at the end of a fast straight.

1. Fire.
2. Mechanical failure in a high speed sweeper.
3. That my wife will find out just how much racing REALLY costs. :stickoutt

I've had a master cyl fail on my on a street car in traffic, that wasn't fun at all. I couldn't imagine if that happened on track.



3. That my wife will find out just how much racing REALLY costs. :stickoutt

:rofl

The more fear you have, and the less confidence in the car, the slower you will be.

This is why professional and reliable maintenance/building is key for a team/driver to be successful.

In clubracing I'd mostly fear other drivers ;)

The more fear you have, and the less confidence in the car, the slower you will be.

This is why professional and reliable maintenance/building is key for a team/driver to be successful.

In clubracing I'd mostly fear other drivers ;)
well, I was more leaning towards everyone's individual "nightmare scenario", as opposed to the more philosophical answer.
that said, your point is very good, and I shall take note.
Jake

Let me be the first to ask, how'd you stop?

For me, my biggest HPDE fear is a left front tire failure middle of t1, entering the esses, or mid/exit of turn 12 at RAtl = dead

Getting deaded.

*edit:fires suck.

Putting a rod through the block in my racecar at the turn in point for turn 8 at Willow Springs.

Happened to me in October of 2005 - wasn't fun and am lucky to still be here. I was doing 151mph when I exited the track and wound up at the Streets of Willow - about 200 yards off track. I was so far off track that the next run-session was not delayed because the safety people said they had NEVER seen a car that far off track and they felt perfectly safe working on it/me with the next session on track.

I fear my equipment failing and taking out another car in the process causing injury to the driver. I'm stupid enough still to believe I'm invincible, so I dont focus on my brakes failing etc, but I dont want to be responsible for harming another person.

Losing sucks too, can that be a fear? (Someone had to be 'that guy'). :cool

During a HPDE session, I had my pedal go to the floor at the initial infield turn-in at Rockingham. That was quite an experience, but all things considered, it couldn't have happened at a better place. Just sailed through the cones marking off the other half of the oval, and scrubbed speed prior to re-entering traffic and putting into the paddock.

Fire. That and people squirreling it up in front of me and me not seeing it or getting any warning until I clobber their stopped car. I've been the hole in a 7-car Spec Miata doughnut while braking from 110 over bumps while turning downhill and been a lot less scared than I get when I see a backmarker spinning up ahead. Other peoples' mistakes killing me are my biggest fear.

Random mechanical failures are pretty high up there too. "There's no such thing as a mechanical failure" is fine and all, but budget doesn't allow you to replace every part every race and shit breaks sometimes, even when it's new. Watch the MX5 Cup race at Road America this December on Speed Channel for a graphic example. Jim Daniels is a household name amongst SM people because, among other things, he knows how to prep a car with no stone left unturned. He still almost got deaded in the kink because of just such a random act of mechanical **.

Putting a rod through the block in my racecar at the turn in point for turn 8 at Willow Springs.

Happened to me in October of 2005 - wasn't fun and am lucky to still be here. I was doing 151mph when I exited the track and wound up at the Streets of Willow - about 200 yards off track. I was so far off track that the next run-session was not delayed because the safety people said they had NEVER seen a car that far off track and they felt perfectly safe working on it/me with the next session on track.
151 ?!?!?!?! :eyecrazy

I've only done one DE at Willow Springs and 90 mph was as much as I could screw up my courage to take the turn in for Turn 8. For those of you who don't know that turn, it's a high-speed (obviously) sweeper with a couple small bumps in it that really test your courage. It's such a highspeed turn that I actually lifted well before the turn in just to stay at 80-90, I'm guessing Holder keeps the hammer down.

You must have provided some great entertainment for the folks running at the Streets, and I'm glad you came out of it OK.

burning alive in a wreck, or ending up a vegetable, I don't like pumpkins, spinnache, cabbage and cauliflours etc

151 ?!?!?!?! :eyecrazy

I've only done one DE at Willow Springs and 90 mph was as much as I could screw up my courage to take the turn in for Turn 8. For those of you who don't know that turn, it's a high-speed (obviously) sweeper with a couple small bumps in it that really test your courage. It's such a highspeed turn that I actually lifted well before the turn in just to stay at 80-90, I'm guessing Holder keeps the hammer down.

You must have provided some great entertainment for the folks running at the Streets, and I'm glad you came out of it OK.

I felt more confidence keeping my foot down than anything through turn 8? But really... 150+mph?! Lucky Willow Springs is mostly flat.

Fire and stupid drivers.

Discussing or writing down fears.

Discussing or writing down fears.

Yes, but when you have lived through your biggest fear, it's strangely confidence inspiring. Come on, admit one!!

It's such a highspeed turn that I actually lifted well before the turn in just to stay at 80-90, I'm guessing Holder keeps the hammer down.

I'm flat from the exit of turn 6 to the braking zone in 9, where I should be doing about 155 to 158.

Greatest fear in racing has nothing to do with my own body/car. I accept the risk(s).
However, I truly fear hurting someone else. It would be a huge burden to carry for the rest of our life if we left someone crippled or dead.

Ken Arutunian

Yes, but when you have lived through your biggest fear, it's strangely confidence inspiring. Come on, admit one!!

I have many, and do all I can to not experience any of them!

One was hitting the armco at the Glen. In my first-ever on track session there, I was tapped & spun exiting the esses by Charles Espenlaub. It was accidental, and he came over later to apologize. He had clipped the right side curb & sort of bounced into my bumper--accidental.

Anyway, I did a huge lurid clockwise spin that took me into the small grass patch on track right, just before you get to the armco. I was fortunately able to catch the spin after doing 180 degrees, ended up rolling backwards on that grass (off the track; both feet in & engine stayed running!!), and came to a halt parallel to the armco. I stuck my hand out of my window ned, and was able to touch the armco.....but didn't hit.

Corner worker waved me back on track, I brought the car in (it was fine except for a flat spotted tire).

And then I almost went Code Brown, but thankfully didn't.

After that, I fell in love with the Glen!!!

Discussing or writing down fears.

+1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

151 ?!?!?!?! :eyecrazy

I've only done one DE at Willow Springs and 90 mph was as much as I could screw up my courage to take the turn in for Turn 8. For those of you who don't know that turn, it's a high-speed (obviously) sweeper with a couple small bumps in it that really test your courage. It's such a highspeed turn that I actually lifted well before the turn in just to stay at 80-90, I'm guessing Holder keeps the hammer down.

You must have provided some great entertainment for the folks running at the Streets, and I'm glad you came out of it OK.

Turn 8 is a nearly 120 mph corner in a race car...even a J-Stock E30 M3.

Turn 8 is a nearly 120 mph corner in a race car...even a J-Stock E30 M3.

I haven't been to Willow in years but I remember turn 8 was ~ 125mph with my foot the floor in my old daily driver m3.

I haven't been to Willow in years but I remember turn 8 was ~ 125mph with my foot the floor in my old daily driver m3.


Yep, I guess I should have added "minimum".

I'm flat from the exit of turn 6 to the braking zone in 9, where I should be doing about 155 to 158.Do those steamroller size tires help keep you planted?

I knew I'd regret posting my turn in speed for Turn 8, but it was my second DE ever and I was more than a little cautious. The big track at Willow is just so incredibly fast. Even so, 151 is still impressive.

Do those steamroller size tires help keep you planted?

I knew I'd regret posting my turn in speed for Turn 8, but it was my second DE ever and I was more than a little cautious. The big track at Willow is just so incredibly fast. Even so, 151 is still impressive.

Ahhh....no one's getting on ya about that. Anyone who says they took Turn 8 at speed in their first few DE's is probably lying anyway! :cool

Fire...oil or coolant on the track...other drivers....mechanical malfunction

pretty much in that order I guess, the last two are probably tied or based on situation/condition & severity

Do those steamroller size tires help keep you planted?

I knew I'd regret posting my turn in speed for Turn 8, but it was my second DE ever and I was more than a little cautious. The big track at Willow is just so incredibly fast. Even so, 151 is still impressive.

The car is amazing! Evosport has done a great job with it and the handling of the Ohlins shock and the Evosport tuning is awesome! Couple that with the power of the S54 and a monkey could drive the car at incredible speeds.

Willow is one of those tracks that seperates the men from the boys. I can tell you the NEXT time through turn 8 after I repaired my car, I was NOT FLAT. I regressed to boyhood for a few laps. Then I put the wreck out of my memory and CONCENTRATE on NOT thinking about it when racing at Willow.

By the way, I don't have any negative feelings toward people who take it easy through turn 8. Some would say it is the SMART thing to do!!

1. Fire.
2. Mechanical failure in a high speed sweeper.
3. That my wife will find out just how much racing REALLY costs. :stickoutt
^+1 :lol

151 ?!?!?!?! :eyecrazy

I've only done one DE at Willow Springs and 90 mph was as much as I could screw up my courage to take the turn in for Turn 8. For those of you who don't know that turn, it's a high-speed (obviously) sweeper with a couple small bumps in it that really test your courage. It's such a highspeed turn that I actually lifted well before the turn in just to stay at 80-90, I'm guessing Holder keeps the hammer down.

You must have provided some great entertainment for the folks running at the Streets, and I'm glad you came out of it OK.

I flipped my (old) e39 540 coming around turn 8 @ 122 mph or so a few years ago. That slowed down my entry speed into 8 for a few weekends afterward :eyecrazy .

I was coming over 6 when Jon's motor blew, so I had a good view of his ride. I finally lost his car in the dust - man did that thing go a long way!

Brake failure, fire, flip over a few times.
I've done Willows only once, and 8 is a very fast, but scary turn. The instructor told me I could go faster, but I didn't feel comfortable at that time, around 100mph was fast enough on my daily driver.

the wall at the glen used to be big for me till I hit it last year, having no brakes at the end of the front stright is big for me, the speed I can enter the turn at, hell even the braking zone at is down right scary for me the only thing that makes me feel better about it having dual masters so all out brake failure is pretty unlikely for me but I still havent went 100% into the first turn Im pretty sure Id run into it 100% during a race though if need be. A wheel falling off in the esses wouldent be fun eather and for any one who has run shanendoha at summit with the "jump" it just plain scared the crap outta me the first couple of times.

Not making it to the track. :D

I am amused at the number of people citing fire as a major fear (myself included), juxtaposed against the prior thread making fun people HPDE drivers wearing suits.:devillook

While driving, I fear high-speed oversteer and high-speed mechanical failure. I should probably fear brake failure, but while on-track I always figure that they'll work at least pretty well.

When instructing, I fear a high-speed student driving error or maintenance failure.

I fear fire and spinal injury / death mostly when I'm not driving. I think about leaving my wife with my daughter to raise without my help.

Gee, that was cheery.

Anyone who says they took Turn 8 at speed in their first few DE's is probably lying anyway! :cool

Very true!! It took me a couple of years and some really funny coaching from a good friend of mine to get me to do it. Even now, it still takes me a few laps, or even a session or two depending on how long it's been since I was there, to get up to not lifting.

I was instructing at a PCA DE this weekend at CMP in SC and had a 944 Turbo racecar that was paddocked next to me break a front balljoint going into turn 14. He ended up in the sand trap off the end of 14. Luckily for him 14 is the slowest turn on the course so he was in the optimal spot for that to happen. They had to put it on a creeper to get it on the trailer.

My top fear would be a similar type mechanical someplace such as the Kink at CMP or turn 9 at Roebling or South Bend at VIR. In the end leaving the track uncontrolled at 100 plus is something I do not want to do. Things that happen after that are almost universally bad.

I guess on the chalk one(or a couple) up to God and luck I have had students spin with me in the car in T1, T5, and the downhill straight leading into T11a at Road Atlanta. For me the T5 spin was the scariest as I knew that was a bad place to have anything happen. The driver cought the tail when it went right but couldn't catch the snap back and we did a clockwise snap 360. We ended up pointing straight down the track but right in the center of the track. The student had gotten both feet in early and the motor was still running. I quickly asked if he was ok and then implored him to go as we were in a pretty dangerous spot to be standing still. He managed to jam it in 1st and take off but by the time we got to the pits he was coming out of shock and realizing how close he came to wadding up a really nice E46 328 with some nice upgrades(Stoptechs, diff, wheels, tasteful aero kit). None of these resulted in damage, just bruised egos, though for two of them I distinctly remember looking out my window at rapidly approaching(or so my mind screamed) jersey barriers and thinking how much this was going to hurt. Glad I didn't have to find out.


RB

I would have to say at this point just doing DE's is that having a mechanical failure or crashing and hurting someone because of it. Because for myself hurting another person for my mess up is something I don't think I could ever forget or forgive.


To jdholder responce: I hope some day I can race on Willow and see what every one is talking about.

The car is amazing! Evosport has done a great job with it and the handling of the Ohlins shock and the Evosport tuning is awesome! Couple that with the power of the S54 and a monkey could drive the car at incredible speeds.


Isn't that the case.....:rolleyes



Sorry....I had to bust your balls on that one.

Let me be the first to ask, how'd you stop?
well, I will make one point right now. I run a Briggs kart, so it wasn't like I was going super fast, but I think I was doing about 45-ish. We run one a 1/4 mile oval, so I just went straight out onto the straight, then cut through the grass and then drove the kart up the track (not where racing was) to get it to stop.
the fun part was when the practice was over, and I had to get off the track, and the exit of the track is a very steep hill.:eyecrazy Thank God the grid guy knew I was coming in, because he grabbed my kart before I went straight down..
Jake
P.S. I agree about the fire, and death. Also, I was surrounded by other karts so I was also worried about hitting them...

I am starting to race my dad's stock car until my autox car is finished.

1. I fear of being cliped from behind going into a corner
2. Getting clipped on back stretch then go straight into a wall at full speed
3. Rearend end locking up in a corner.

I am sure anyone here will say a rear end locking up at any higher speed would be scary in a straight line nun the less a corner.

I have had brake master cylinder hose fail at end of main straight in reed valve go kart (intercontinental A) just pitched it sideways and avoided hitting everything, would be much harder (read impossible) in car to get away with same thing

T-bone on driver side, trapping me in car with ensuing fire.

I can relate all too well to Jon Holder's flight off the track. Several years ago, just North of Denver, I attended an O-fest.

I was incorrectly black-flagged on the first practice session, and had been doing fine up to that point. I was pretty steamed, there were still five minutes left in the session, so I figured I'd go back out, and get in some more track time. Admittedly, I probably didn't do a brake check in the pits....

Big mistake. Took the first turn out of the pits, floored it, and went for the next one. a decent length straight-away preceeds the next turn. Brake Pedal dropped to the floor, no brakes .... no way to make the turn, no way to turn left either, had to go straight. The camber of the turn sent me airborne...and there was a sickening moment of silence as the car took flight... I felt like Clive Owen with Madonna in the back seat....I knocked a tire or two off the TOP of the tire wall as I cleared that.... I landed the plane for a moment, just long enough to hit another birm, and go up again, and through the top half of a wire fence... to land out on a public highway.... well outside the limits of the track.

Corner worker's comment:

"I been workin races for 12 years, I ain't never see no one do that"

Mike Akard's comment to my friends trying to answer where I was "on the track":

"Naw, you don't understand, he done left the premises"

I'm pretty religious about doing brake checks after pit stops now.

Alex.

(There's more to the story of course, like the racer's wife passing me on the highway as I'm stranded, gawking out the window wondering, "what the *%$#@")

I am amused at the number of people citing fire as a major fear (myself included), juxtaposed against the prior thread making fun people HPDE drivers wearing suits.:devillook


That's why I've never paid attention to what they say when I wear my flame suit to HPDE's. Shit happens at those events as well.
Heck, I wear my HANS at track events, walls are hard in racing and track events alike.

Big mistake. Took the first turn out of the pits, floored it, and went for the next one. a decent length straight-away preceeds the next turn. Brake Pedal dropped to the floor, no brakes .... no way to make the turn, no way to turn left either, had to go straight. The camber of the turn sent me airborne...and there was a sickening moment of silence as the car took flight... I felt like Clive Owen with Madonna in the back seat....I knocked a tire or two off the TOP of the tire wall as I cleared that.... I landed the plane for a moment, just long enough to hit another birm, and go up again, and through the top half of a wire fence... to land out on a public highway.... well outside the limits of the track.

Alex.



If that wasn't so tragic, I would be laughing. Ok, I am laughing, but it's that nervous laughter, like you get when you don't want to think about something too hard. Strangely, I get that nervous laughter in my head everytime I leave the pits at Willow Springs.

So - in summary Alex, I am laughing with you, not at you. And I am laughing becasue you are still here on this earth - and I am glad for that!!

1. Fire.
2. Mechanical failure in a high speed sweeper.
3. That my wife will find out just how much racing REALLY costs. :stickoutt


:lol A M E N :lol

Big mistake. Took the first turn out of the pits, floored it, and went for the next one. a decent length straight-away preceeds the next turn. Brake Pedal dropped to the floor, no brakes .... no way to make the turn, no way to turn left either, had to go straight. The camber of the turn sent me airborne...and there was a sickening moment of silence as the car took flight... I felt like Clive Owen with Madonna in the back seat....I knocked a tire or two off the TOP of the tire wall as I cleared that.... I landed the plane for a moment, just long enough to hit another birm, and go up again, and through the top half of a wire fence... to land out on a public highway.... well outside the limits of the track.

Corner worker's comment:

"I been workin races for 12 years, I ain't never see no one do that"

Mike Akard's comment to my friends trying to answer where I was "on the track":

"Naw, you don't understand, he done left the premises"

I'm pretty religious about doing brake checks after pit stops now.

Alex.

(There's more to the story of course, like the racer's wife passing me on the highway as I'm stranded, gawking out the window wondering, "what the *%$#@")

:rofl: :lol :lol :devillook sorry for laughing you made my night with this post

Post of the year.


T-bone on driver side, trapping me in car with ensuing fire.

I can relate all too well to Jon Holder's flight off the track. Several years ago, just North of Denver, I attended an O-fest.

I was incorrectly black-flagged on the first practice session, and had been doing fine up to that point. I was pretty steamed, there were still five minutes left in the session, so I figured I'd go back out, and get in some more track time. Admittedly, I probably didn't do a brake check in the pits....

Big mistake. Took the first turn out of the pits, floored it, and went for the next one. a decent length straight-away preceeds the next turn. Brake Pedal dropped to the floor, no brakes .... no way to make the turn, no way to turn left either, had to go straight. The camber of the turn sent me airborne...and there was a sickening moment of silence as the car took flight... I felt like Clive Owen with Madonna in the back seat....I knocked a tire or two off the TOP of the tire wall as I cleared that.... I landed the plane for a moment, just long enough to hit another birm, and go up again, and through the top half of a wire fence... to land out on a public highway.... well outside the limits of the track.

Corner worker's comment:

"I been workin races for 12 years, I ain't never see no one do that"

Mike Akard's comment to my friends trying to answer where I was "on the track":

"Naw, you don't understand, he done left the premises"

I'm pretty religious about doing brake checks after pit stops now.

Alex.

(There's more to the story of course, like the racer's wife passing me on the highway as I'm stranded, gawking out the window wondering, "what the *%$#@")