SORRY YOU HAD A CRASH
Discussion
One of our fellow contributors is Telum01.
By chance, I came across a video, showing Telum01 enjoying a track day in his Aston Martin Vantage.
Unfortunately, at 5 min 45 sec, he takes quite a long left-hander, then just before the corner exit, as you do, gave it the beans.
After what happened next, I think I would have got out of the car and wept. Telum01 is clearly made of sterner stuff.
He just selected first gear and drove on. I don't think there was even any cursing.
Hope the damage is not too bad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1czA1R_Cqs
Edited by Jon39 on Friday 31st March 17:32
Hahaha yeah... There were a few contributing factors, but the bottom line was I overestimated how warm my tires were and underestimated the changes I'd made to my car.
The turn I crashed at is a tight left hairpin. It's a throw-away corner, but it sets you up for a string of important turns leading into the main straight. I wanted to try a lower gear and lower speed going through the turn to be in a better part of the power band and better positioned further left on the track prior to entering the right-hander almost immediately after exiting the hairpin. It was super cold that morning and it was the first session of the day. I thought my tires would be able to handle it, but obviously I was wrong. I did have fair warning - in turn 1 (the right-hander after I let the red NSX by) you can see that the car is a bit squirrely and I take the turn pretty tight to the inside (result of letting off throttle to better control things due to that looseness).
The other side of things is that I recently added a lightweight flywheel and customized tune, and the day before was my first day driving the car on track with this setup. It was a lot warmer the first day, and everything went beautifully. The tune has a more aggressive throttle mapping and, in conjunction with the lightweight flywheel, the engine is much quicker to respond.
So, despite not even going that fast through the turn, the combination of lower gear (and thus higher torque output at lower speed), quicker throttle and engine response, and cold tires on a cold track... it was just enough to bring the backend around.
As for damages... the fender (front wing), door, and door mirror are all getting replaced. Cracked a tail light, but I'm swapping the standard red ones from my red V8V onto this one, and getting clear ones for the red one anyway, so that's no big deal. Carbon fiber lip was snapped in half. The bonnet was already damaged when I let my girlfriend drive the car to work a couple weeks prior, so I already had a V12 bonnet on order. While everything's apart, I'll be adding an AMR lightweight bumper beam and mesh grille, plus carbon fiber fender vent strakes.
It sucked, but could have been much worse!
The turn I crashed at is a tight left hairpin. It's a throw-away corner, but it sets you up for a string of important turns leading into the main straight. I wanted to try a lower gear and lower speed going through the turn to be in a better part of the power band and better positioned further left on the track prior to entering the right-hander almost immediately after exiting the hairpin. It was super cold that morning and it was the first session of the day. I thought my tires would be able to handle it, but obviously I was wrong. I did have fair warning - in turn 1 (the right-hander after I let the red NSX by) you can see that the car is a bit squirrely and I take the turn pretty tight to the inside (result of letting off throttle to better control things due to that looseness).
The other side of things is that I recently added a lightweight flywheel and customized tune, and the day before was my first day driving the car on track with this setup. It was a lot warmer the first day, and everything went beautifully. The tune has a more aggressive throttle mapping and, in conjunction with the lightweight flywheel, the engine is much quicker to respond.
So, despite not even going that fast through the turn, the combination of lower gear (and thus higher torque output at lower speed), quicker throttle and engine response, and cold tires on a cold track... it was just enough to bring the backend around.
As for damages... the fender (front wing), door, and door mirror are all getting replaced. Cracked a tail light, but I'm swapping the standard red ones from my red V8V onto this one, and getting clear ones for the red one anyway, so that's no big deal. Carbon fiber lip was snapped in half. The bonnet was already damaged when I let my girlfriend drive the car to work a couple weeks prior, so I already had a V12 bonnet on order. While everything's apart, I'll be adding an AMR lightweight bumper beam and mesh grille, plus carbon fiber fender vent strakes.
It sucked, but could have been much worse!
Edited by telum01 on Friday 31st March 18:01
tonyhall38 said:
Glad your ok.....metal can be fixed as they say.....girlfriend damaged the hood?..... she still your girlfriend?....
LOL! Yep, she is. She literally curled up on the ground and cried when it happened. But she's taking care of it on her end so it's all good. Plus, frankly, the insurance payment to cover that is making my tire wall impact much less expensive! So if anything, I should be thanking her!Btw, still need to get some sill pates for both of my Vantages from you. At this point, I'm thinking "please stop hurting me" for the grey one....
Thought I'd share my track exit. No excuses, just got in over my head trying to pass on the main straight and ran out of braking room. No damage, just a bit of dirt. Anyone else have any good documented excursions?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgFeDFYdGKg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgFeDFYdGKg
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