Your most helpless moment in a car.
Discussion
Mid 60s & a mate & I were setting a club car trial for the Morgan owners club Of Oz. The trial was more a Sunday social run with a bit of competition flavour than a serious trial, so we weren't low flying.
We were in his new 4/4, with the 115E Ford engine, & he offered me a drive. It was a transport stage, crossing a small river, 600 ft. down in a deep sandstone gorge. The road was cut into the sandstone, with sweeping curves, followed by hairpins too tight for tour coaches.
I was rolling gently through a left hander, with a 100Ft high cut face to my left, & a fair drop to my right. The sign had told me there was a right hand hairpin around this curve. I was going carefully, as after some recent rain, there were a few largish chunks of sandstone fallen on the road from the cutting.
Suddenly a large sedan appeared around the rock face. He had pulled a bit of a power slide out of the hairpin, & was out on our side of the road. I would not have had a problem stopping as he got back over, if, when I gently applied the brakes, the right front wheel had not climbed up onto a foot diameter or so lump of fallen sandstone, locked up, & stayed there. Nothing I did in the 25 Ft or so I had, would get it off.
It was like one of those 3D movies. The accident is coming relentlessly, & there is nothing you can do to stop it. You can only sit & wait for the crash. Sliding helplessly into it at probably only 7 MPH it took for ever.
Afterwards you could see the broad sandstone line on the road, dead straight from where the wheel had mounted it, to where the sudden stop occurred. This stopped still on our side of the road, so the cops charged the other bloke.
It wasn't even much of a prang, but the drivers side suspension was bent back. I grabbed a cab home, chucked the Brabham out of it's trailer, & went & got the 4/4.
I will never forget that feeling of helplessness as the thing totally ignored my input, & slid slowly into the other cars door.
We were in his new 4/4, with the 115E Ford engine, & he offered me a drive. It was a transport stage, crossing a small river, 600 ft. down in a deep sandstone gorge. The road was cut into the sandstone, with sweeping curves, followed by hairpins too tight for tour coaches.
I was rolling gently through a left hander, with a 100Ft high cut face to my left, & a fair drop to my right. The sign had told me there was a right hand hairpin around this curve. I was going carefully, as after some recent rain, there were a few largish chunks of sandstone fallen on the road from the cutting.
Suddenly a large sedan appeared around the rock face. He had pulled a bit of a power slide out of the hairpin, & was out on our side of the road. I would not have had a problem stopping as he got back over, if, when I gently applied the brakes, the right front wheel had not climbed up onto a foot diameter or so lump of fallen sandstone, locked up, & stayed there. Nothing I did in the 25 Ft or so I had, would get it off.
It was like one of those 3D movies. The accident is coming relentlessly, & there is nothing you can do to stop it. You can only sit & wait for the crash. Sliding helplessly into it at probably only 7 MPH it took for ever.
Afterwards you could see the broad sandstone line on the road, dead straight from where the wheel had mounted it, to where the sudden stop occurred. This stopped still on our side of the road, so the cops charged the other bloke.
It wasn't even much of a prang, but the drivers side suspension was bent back. I grabbed a cab home, chucked the Brabham out of it's trailer, & went & got the 4/4.
I will never forget that feeling of helplessness as the thing totally ignored my input, & slid slowly into the other cars door.
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