Autocross Crashes.

In 10 years, I've witnessed a few. Cars into curbs, a tree or two, even one completely off the surface, through a fence and into a swamp. In all instances, the course was well away from hard objects and the driver decided to see if the laws of physics applied to them.

Yesterday saw a brand spanking new Camaro leave the course, hit a berm 100' off the asphalt, and land on its roof. No injuries, but I'm pretty sure the car is totaled and the owner hadn't even made the first payment. I'm chalking this one up to OE, because the car was well past the finish line and the time slip station when it left the asphalt at a high rate of speed. It left me shaking my head wondering WTF. I think the guy just got confused as to where he was. 

That leaves the question. Are these types of situations avoidable? Or will there always be that one person that can defy even the best intentions.

Should run off areas be paved? This event was at a track, on the track surface. Errors were usually rewarded by mowing the grass and zero traction for braking. There isn't any way to avoid it with a narrow surface. I can honestly say I was conservative with my driving because of it. There were still two cars that went into the grass at speed and were damaged. The previous mentioned Camaro, and a VW that destroyed the bumper cover, a/c condenser and under tray when it went through a swale. 

No, I didn't take any pictures of the car. The guy is going to have enough problems without pictures all over the internet. He may well be on the hook for a $40k+ car. 

I'll leave with this. It's been said before and needs repeating. If you can't afford to walk away from a smoking pile of scrap, don't bring it to the track. 

I struggle with feeling like I have the responsibility to explain the risks of particular courses to new people. I don't think I've ever been at a site that is completely free of risk, some worse that others. Even my own kid, at the last autocross, went off in the ONE SPOT where I said to make sure she didn't go off because the pavement drops off 4-5 inches. We ended up ok, but it was one hell of a bumpy ride. 

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

Yesterday's course was the fastest I have ever driven. It's the only time I have ever run the Abomination in 3rd gear on course. 

I can honestly say I'm glad my 17 yo son had to work or I would have had to ride passenger with him with my hand on the kill switch. 

Maybe a no novices allowed rule would be a reasonable compromise on high risk courses. Or one year experience required. Word is this was his 2nd or 3rd event, and first with the new car. 

IMO there is always an unavoidable inherit risk in this type of activity and,  no matter what you do, putting an inexperienced driver in a highly capable car increases that. At the end of the day it is up to drivers to determine the amount of risk they are willing to take with their car/payment book/etc. Turning a car into a smoking pile of debris is a reality that every single one of us has to come to terms with before getting behind the wheel and we need to manage our driving accordingly.

This is the reason I haven't tried hillclimbing yet, despite eyeing the events for years.  

Toyman01 said: Or will there always be that one person that can defy even the best intentions. 

I think that's the answer.

I always thought that grass was an odd material to have beyond the verges on a track. It has a LOT less friction (especially if the least bit damp), and does little to slow or stop a car unless the dirt is very soft.  IMHO I thought gravel or even sand would be better.

As for AutoX. I guess you are at the mercy of the venue with that one, but I do agree that such a powerful car was no place for a novice to be

We had one at test n tune day this spring. A very well built and well pedigreed S2000, on his home course no less. 

Came through a sweeper into a straight before a hard right, his abs went into ice mode, and he ate the only guardrail on the lot. Saved him from going off a hill,but he buried the rail further through the hood that I thought the engine sat. 

It was his 4 or 5 season in that car, just had a random ABS problem and that was it. It sucked, the noise of the impact even from where I was in grid was sickening, but he was fine, towed the car off the lot and borrowed someone else's to finish the day. I haven't seen him since then, so I'm not sure what has happened to the car. 

I guess the long and short of that is even with good drivers, known vehicles, and clean lots, E36 M3 can happen and it's everyone's responsibility to keep their eyes open. 

stuart in mn said:

Toyman01 said: Or will there always be that one person that can defy even the best intentions. 

I think that's the answer.

I once saw somebody Marty McFly it into another car at an event. I'd heard of such a thing, but never seen it. Sure enough, guy had jockied back and forth on the starting line, left it in reverse and punched an unsuspecting MR-S in the mouth.

If there was no risk, they wouldn't make you sign a waiver.

Luckily the worst I've seen was a car eat the wall at the dragstrip, but it was more a sideswipe and driver was ok.  

I will never put any car on any track that I am making payments on.  Waiving insurance to race in a vehicle you're on the hook to the bank for is flirting with disaster.  That's why I play with challenge car budgets.  I don't know what the Devin will be worth when done but I have a desire to do some historical racing like Put-In-Bay and I'd surely look into track day insurance to do anything with it as it's likely to be the most valuable vehicle I would ever consider putting on track.  I can ball up the Datsun and walk away.  Not happily because I love the car, but dollar wise I'm not broken.  If I wadded up a new Camaro I'd be making payments on a pile of parts for 5 years.  

I accept the fact that "racing incidents" happen at all levels and speeds, doesn't make me any less sick for the person when it happens.  

One of the local autocross clubs runs a small lot with light poles within 10' of the course, and the asphalt has water coming up through in spots on dry days.  I turned into the slalom one gate early and was staring at a pole.  Bailed on that run right quick.  

I've seen a couple of cars (vettes specifically) go through chain-link fences while autocrossing, plus two (non-vette) instances of cars and wheels parting ways on course, but thankfully never seen anything serious.

There will always be that random guy with more ego than skill, but in general it seems the best way to keep accidents to a minimum is to make sure the course speeds are kept slow.  Especially when run-off space is at a premium.

Shouldn’t course design play a large roll in this? If the course is near to curbs or lamp posts or pavement dips and soil, the course should be designed so that area is the SLOWEST part of the course, you can never have too many corners. And slow corners are better for testing skill than anything with speed. 

As for the geek that blew it at the finish line, I wouldn’t allow someone like that back. How do you blow the darn finish line!

In reply to mad_machine :

He managed to make it through the sand trap between him and the berm. Like I said, this one still has me scratching my head. The finish was very fast. I was probably coming through the finish line at a touch over 60mph, with 140hp. The shut down was decently long, but approaching a turn. The girl working timing slips said it sounded like he was still on the throttle when he passed her and at that point the track makes a reasonably tight right. There was also a cone wall directing you off the track into the infield and back to grid. The only scenario I can imagine is, he missed the finish, panicked when he passed the time slip station, and lost it track left. Finish, plus shutdown straight, plus high HP, could have put him leaving the asphalt at better than 100 mph. 

I just hate that it happens. 

You do what you can to make it idiotproof, but on the other hand, that also just breeds a more lax view of safety.  "I don't have to worry about it, they already thought of everything."

In other words, there's always going to be "that guy", all you can do is design to not be actively hazardous.

Trackmouse said:As for the geek that blew it at the finish line, I wouldn’t allow someone like that back. How do you blow the darn finish line!

*raises hand*

RXNC, 2015 and 2016.  I kept standing on the brakes a gate early on my Saturday morning runs.  Both years had the course end in an uphill stretch towards the paddock, on wet-ish grass, so the course exit was straight, and the exit gate and the gate prior to the exit looked a lot alike.

Finishing too early rather than not early enough is preferable for safety but is destructive for your competitiveness, especially when one excels at driving in horrible conditions.  Need to maximize your advantages after all.

In reply to Trackmouse :

This particular event is popular because it is fast. It's not your typical tight course on a small lot. It's almost a 3 hour tow for me, and the only reason I went is because I was told it was a fast, long, course; 2nd and 3rd gear fast and over a minute. Just what many experienced autocrossers like. I had a blast. I had my 14 yo son in the car with me all 6 runs and he had a blast. 

I never even considered that 100+ feet of apron with a sand trap ending with a soft berm wouldn't be enough safety cushion until I heard the bang and saw the dust cloud.

Is barring novices a reasonable thing to do? 

If you fail hard at autocross you should have to get a prominent tattoo that alerts everyone to the fact so you are forever barred from any motorsport activity.

A scarlet letter, so to speak.

In reply to The Artist Formerly Known as Giant Purple Snorklewacker :

So, a crushed cone?

I've seen several sometimes it's poor course design, sometimes it's unchecked bravado, sometimes it's too much car in untrained hands, and sometimes it's firmly in the "E36 M3 happens" category.  

Banning novices is not going to help the sport in anyway.  Designing a novice friendly program if that is the core of your membership seems to work well for the club who's autocross program I chair.  Unfortunately when experienced "hard line" SCCA autocrossers show up to our events they tend to complain. 

Autocross as a whole could be "fixed" if more people grabbed a beer and put thought into the real importance of driving around cones in a parking lot for fun. 

If I cast my mind back a couple decades, I recall autocross not being all that welcoming as a newb.  Everyone else already knows what's going on and is busy doing their thing.  You sorta get lost in the shuffle, DNF out, and burn a Sunday.  

I think first-timers should be paired with long-timers for the day, or until they request and are granted a sign-off.  This would go a long way toward retaining people to the sport instead of the newb showing up, getting 4-5 DNFs and never coming back.

But you can't fix stupid.  Every actual mishap or close call I've seen has been the result of exuberant drivers not giving it up when they blow a run.  

My first ever auto cross was not an SCCA event. It was ran through two separate lots full of curbs, light posts and weaved around buildings, semi trailers and water tanks behind a fire house transitioning from asphalt to concrete and back again. Temps were only in the mid 30's and it was damp. It was exhilarating. And I was shocked that no one wadded anything up. The only time I did see an off at an auto x was a big empty lot with very few poles and very few curbs that were in a straight section and at least five feet of to the side of the cones. And that's where the guy ripped the rear wheel off of his mustang. I never could figure out how that happened.

I like how no one has even given one thought to a stuck throttle...

Toyman01 said:

I'll leave with this.  It’s been said before and needs repeating. If you can't afford to walk away from a smoking pile of scrap, don't bring it to the track. 

 

The racing world would be without a lot of great drivers if this were followed.  Randy Pobst, for one.

Patrick said:

I will never put any car on any track that I am making payments on. 

This.  And I take it a step further:  There are cars you depend upon to drive to work, kids to school, whatever.  Then there are cars you take to the strip, the autocross, track, whatever and beat the piss out of.  For me, those two cars are never the same car.

Anything to make courses safer for people and cars is a good thing I think though someone would have to pay for it. Financial responsibility with people is all over the place. While this driver may not have thought about it as much of a risk that wasn't too smart as things go. Expensive lesson learned maybe. I've always been a gearhead, but my parents and I couldn't really justify the cost of brand new cars. At the drag strip though it seems pretty common - lots of young kids with new(ish) fast cars relatively clueless how to drive or work on them. I remember riding on the highway with a buddy years ago in his LS1 Camaro SS. It was a bit hairy and I remember thinking how the car might have saved us - if it had the shocks and tires of the 10-20+ year old stuff I was used to driving I'm not sure things would have went the same way.