The shame, the shame!

P71 wrote: So uh, you ever have any embarrassing moments? I didn't do so hot at the autocross yesterday, but the pic was too funny not to share.

D00d! Last event I drove, there was a guy in a ratty SE-R that did that practically every run, including taking out one half of the exit box and the trap timing light reflector.

Talk about oversteer. I did a small time trial on the Patriot course at VIR a month or so age. I had Kuhmo 710's on the back and an old set of worn out Hoosiers on the front of my Justa Cooper MINI. After the first session the Hoosiers were corded so I moved the Kuhmo's to the front and put street tires on the back. Talk about a wild ride. The embarassing part was I set my fastest time like that.

There ain't enough bandwidth for all my embarassing moments that were caught on camera. Here's one:

That was Stinky, my much loved and missed 1st gen gobbling cones.

No pics, but I backed the Abomination into a tire wall at the Wolf Ridge hillclimb last year. That was just plain stupidity on my part. :oops:

I watched a Subie WRX eat 5 cones at once this weekend.

FOUR OF THEM ended up lodged under the car. They had a HELL of a time getting them out.

And the guy in the cobalt that did his entire run and lined back up with a cone under his bumper was pretty funny, too.

Waaay back when I first started RallyXing, my car was still very much a work in progress.. 300+ horsepower, blown stock suspension and no brand all season tires.. I went barreling into a sweeper that had a wall of cones on the outside and killed 11 of them in a single run. Not my finest hour.

At one AutoX I was really pushing hard on my last run to best my time for the day, and I took the last turn a little to hot and went through the timing lights completely sideways, barely missing the finish cones and both the light and the reflector. The good thing was I had beaten my best time and had a clean run! The bad was I took out about ten cones after the finish in the run off area with my drivers door (I was still sliding sideways). A cone after the finish is a DNF in our region.

^^ Same here. In fact, I believe the Abomination had the $2006 Challenge FTD until a cone got whacked about 10 feet past the finish. Oh, well, 4th overall in the AX was pretty damn good.

The local autox where I grew up had to instate maximum cones hit and no drifting rules because these kids kept treating it like a drift course. None of them were any good so most runs resulted in many cones being hit.

After reading all of these "goofs" and chuckling. I was thinking, I have either done that or witnessed it.

But how long does it take to grind the cone down so it goes under? Kind of like getting the whole getting to the center of a tootsie pop just different.

Back when I started running FVees I had a weird if not embarrassing incident. Its hard to hit a cone in a vee, its just so small, I went sideways through a gate one time without taking a cone.

Anyway, I nailed a cone good in the slalom and it flipped up and right into the very tight cockpit. Somehow I managed to jettison it without going off course or nailing another cone. When I got back to scoring they had me called for 2 cones but you KNOW when you take a cone in a car like that and I only had the one. Eventually we sorted it out, the corner worker called the cone when I hit it, then they just saw a cone flying and assumed I nailed another one, it was the same one as I threw it out of the car :)

16vCorey wrote: At one AutoX I was really pushing hard on my last run to best my time for the day, and I took the last turn a little to hot and went through the timing lights completely sideways, barely missing the finish cones and both the light and the reflector. The good thing was I had beaten my best time and had a clean run! The bad was I took out about ten cones after the finish in the run off area with my drivers door (I was still sliding sideways). A cone after the finish is a DNF in our region.

Mine, too. I'm a noob at Autocrossing (all y'all other old circuit racers listen to me-it really is different!). At my first event last year, I really didn't get a good walk. I finally got a decent run down..and then proceeded to drive straight out of the exit box instead of making the left turn to the return road.

And at our first one this year, I came up over a rise and the thing I've since learned is called a "Chicago Box" looked nothing like it did on either walk. A sea of cones. I skipped the entire thing. Just drove right around it.

I did both of these with a buddy of mine who's won a trophy at Nats riding along..

The last even I drove at before this there was a cone down in my way. I would have stopped and collected my re-run but I was flat flying and it was SCCA so I threw my arm out of the window and pointed at the sucker while cornering around it. That run got me and the 100% stock (on BFG KDW's) GTO into 1st in STU beating out the STi and the GTO's owner. I got some style points too

yuejals wrote: I had a lot of embarrassing moments last year, my first full autocross season with my then new-to-me Miata. As my very first responsive, RWD sports car, I just couldn't figure out how to drive it. I was rewarded for my exceptionally terrible driving at the car club's year end awards banquet: I handily won the Bowling Award for killing the most cones--I had more than 50--and several "special" awards from other competitors recognizing my two dozen spins for the year. Here's a nice picture of one such spin that my friend was able to catch on camera. Here's the video of the same spin [youtube.com].

I knew your were racing at Rantoul before I even clicked your link. I recognized the weeds.

No, this was not the intended direction of travel.

Forgot my magnetics that day, too.

at the most recent Autocross held at Belle Isle, I "got lost" on course and found myself pointed directly at a group of corner workers...that was when I knew I was no longer on course....pretty embarassing.

i was running with wcmc a couple of years ago and got out of shape off the slome before the finsh line and seeing that i was going to hit the lights spun the car instead and killed the battery,, saved the lights at least and killed some cones...they would not let me live that down after that for the season... all this with my delta 88...

Nowadays, if I plow any cones over it's usually in the later runs when I'm driving faster but I'm exhausted and my weight comes down on the brake pedal in a decreasing-radius downhill full-lock microcorner at the end of a straight section or wide open slalom. Total plow trap.

Apart from that I just barely nudge them over or out of their square with a lifted inner rear wheel. Maybe I should soften up the suspension so I can lift the wheel clean over the cone

the worst ones arent even photogenic, I had a "whoops I missed a cone" moment going into a turn after a slalom, skipped back into the turn and finished the course with a big ol dnf, felt like it was painted on my forehead.

ckosacranoid wrote: i was running with wcmc a couple of years ago and got out of shape off the slome before the finsh line and seeing that i was going to hit the lights spun the car instead and killed the battery,, saved the lights at least and killed some cones...they would not let me live that down after that for the season... all this with my delta 88...

I did a big ol' tankslapper a year or so back, took out a timing light. :oops: There's bad language too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN0IdaGUwYQ

every group i have run with says if you kill the lights you pay for them and they are not cheap....

Yup - I run our local autocrosses, and that's the speech I give. Cuz it's true.

Of course, guess who the only person to go through the lights sideways at one of our events is?

93celicaGT2 wrote: I watched a Subie WRX eat 5 cones at once this weekend. FOUR OF THEM ended up lodged under the car. They had a HELL of a time getting them out.

I've had that happen in my Impreza coupe when I used to auto-x it. I caught three cones underneath it when I understeered into a set of pointer cones. The cones ended up bending the exhaust heat shields out of shape. Even though I've bent them back into shape, you can still hear them rattle when I accelerate.

I spun my Scooby off a very cold runway last year as well. Cold runway + cold RT-615s = no grip. I ended up in the weeds. Cold dirt + cold RT-615s also = no grip. I revved the crap out of my Impreza and pelted some poor corner worker with dirt and sand while the car scrabbled back onto the runway. I must've looked like I was rallycrossing it!