Some of you guys may not have caught this on FaceBook or in my other thread - here is my wild ride post and video from the track the other night.
If you wanna skip the long read just watch the video here:
https://vimeo.com/362985300
Last night's trip to the drag strip was unlike any other time I've ever been. I'm made few hundred drag strip passes in my life, and at least 50-60 in this car alone, and never has anything remotely like this happened.
This was my 5th pass of the evening, and I was really starting to get my new Hoosier's and 2-step launch control dialed in. The 60' was the best I've ever cut with this car, and it was on what surely was going to be it's best pass ever. Unfortunately, at about the 500' mark I ran through a large puddle of coolant the truck in front of me put down. I didn't see it at all, and apparently neither did the track crew (although several spectators confirmed they saw the truck let out a large cloud of smoke at about that point). The car instantly made a quick right and headed for the wall at about 85mph. It's just not a place you expect to suddenly be fighting with a car violently out of shape. I stomped on the clutch immediately, steered into the slide, and amazing it just kept sliding for a bit - coolant is slippery stuff. Finally, the car found some grip and started to respond to my inputs, and then the fight with extremely soft and flexible drag radial tires with very low air pressure was on.
To add complexity, I was about 3 car lengths ahead of the car in the left lane. I was rapidly losing speed while sliding, and was very concerned about coming across the track right in front of him. I did my very best to catch the slide, almost kept it off the wall completely as the other car passed by, and then let it (let it? I think it was going regardless) run back towards the middle and loop out. Then, I limped off on the first return road, and spent a few seconds letting my heart rate start to come back down before hoping out and looking at the damage.
The damage is a a little worse than it looks. Yes the bumper needs paint, but it actually shoved the lower corner of the rear quarter in. Fortunately I know a good body guy, but of course it will all be out of pocket as insurance isn't going to do anything at the track. Amazingly I didn't hurt the wheel at all, just rubbed the tire ever so slightly.
I'm upset the track crew didn't go take a look after the truck before me clearly had issues. I understand they have a tough job to do, trying to get cars down as quickly as possible, and stay safe, but I would gladly spend a little extra time waiting to make sure the track is safe. The issue was so severe from the coolant that was put down that they closed that lane for the rest of the night and just ran singles in the left lane.
Ultimately, I'm pretty happy with my driving, and especially that I kept it off the car in the other lane. I'm not hurt, I was still able to drive the car on the trailer at the end of the night, I'm counting my blessings because that could have been so much worse. Stay safe and stay ready all my drag racing buddies - anything can happen out there.