Racing Bloopers

[Wayne]

Time for some humor. They say the ability to laugh at yourself is a positive trait, so lets hear your embarrassing racing moments.

I spun out on a victory lap once...

This was a rain race, with a heavy, steady down pour, a full wet track with periodic river crossings at some corners. About 1/4 through the race I had made good progress towards the front. I was actually passing people!! The same guy who has had my number all year (dry races) I was able to pass and put some distance between us.

It was a crazy race with people spinning off the track right and left. Some guys passed me three or four times during the race. They would come flying by, and spin off the track at the corners. A few laps later, the same guys come flying by and go spinning off... Amazing how some people don't grasp the concept of throttle modulation on a wet track. It's like they have a toggle switch for the throttle - full-off OR wide open, nothing in between.

Anyway, I was having a ball, steering the car through some of the corners with the throttle - right at the edge of traction, rear end stepping out on occasion etc. Managed to get the lead about 3/4 through and then had a good, albeit slippery battle with two other cars until the end of the race. I had them on the straights, but had to keep the car well away from the wall as the car was hydroplaning badly, even in a straight line.

Won the race, came through the pit lane to pick up the flag and headed back out on the victory lap. Going through one of the corners on the back side of the track, at a slow speed, the rear-end came around and I spun off into the grass... but I was still holding the flag out the window.

This was the same corner that I just spent the last 30 minutes going through at speed during the race. I'm sure the flaggers were thinking WTF is up with this guy????????

I was thankful for:

It happening on the far backside of the track.
Few flaggers saw it happen.
I had turned off the in-car camera after the race so this feat was not included on the race video.
I didn't get stuck in the grass.
No spectators (my wife and family) could see the corner where this took place.
The track photographer did not have a view to this part of the track.
The car didn't stall (hard to restart sometimes) Can you imagine having to get a flat-tow because you spun out on the victory lap?????

So, what are your embarrassing racing moments????

Wayne

[joeg]

I spun on the first lap. Cold tires. Fortunately everyone was able to take evasive action.

Other embarrassing moments can include "cruising" toward the end of the race and watching your competition spin out and recover in time to nip you at the line.

[zracre]

Breaking an axle at Daytona at pit in while running second in an enduro...with only a few minutes to go...I could almost hear the laughter and cheers from my competitors...

[Knestis]

Two people who should have been able to figure it out managed to tip a certain white GTI off of the jackstands at the Roebling school in 2004. A helpful competitor nearby explained how we should do it in language normally reserved for small children and idiot cousins.

I take solace in errors like that, based on one of my favorite racing stories...

WAY back in the mid-1980's Carroll Smith (of "...to Win" book fame), was running a Formula Ford for his son Chris. Competitors at the time included the likes of Jimmy Vasser, Jon Beekuis, and Calvin Fish (the latter two great examples of unfunded talent of the time), so this was where some of the good stuff was happening.

That show came to a National at Portland and, because we wanted to learn from the greats, we were eyeballing Carroll S. as he did a valve adjustment on Chris' car. He got done and fired it up, with the car on a set of car stands...

...only to discover that (1) the car was in gear, and (2) he'd left a centerlock wrench about 3' long on one of the rear hubs.

WHEEEEE!!

He'd been using it to turn over the engine to get TDC on each valve. Nobody was killed but I learned a couple of important lessons - about adjusting valves and about mere human beings going racing.

K

[charrbq]

Immediately, I can think of two...one in race preparation, and one during a race.

Race prep...showing off my race car to a friend. We were going to change the front pads, and he was really excited about helping with the job. Rather than jacking from each side (the safe way), I ran the jack under the middle of the front and jacked from there to expedite the process. Talking away with an inflated ego and an unobservant eye, I jacked the car almost high enough for the jack stands when it came off the jack...ripping through the rubber bumper, grill, and radiator. Boy, was my buddy impressed!

The other happened on the pace lap at Daytona when the hood came flying into the windshield. I'd left the hood pins out when I checked the oil and got too busy to check them later. This was stupid, but to add to the irony, I'd checked the oil before qualifying. So I ran an entire 20 minute session, at substantial speed, with the hood undone only to have it come up at 30 mph on the pace lap.

Ran the race with a cracked windshield after the pit marshall shoved my hood down and pinned it. Got back up to my grid position when I ran out of laps.

[planet6racing]

I know you all are waiting for me to respond.

So, I'm goinig to keep you waiting!

[zracre]

Originally posted by planet6racing@Oct 5 2005, 03:26 PM
I know you all are waiting for me to respond.

So, I'm goinig to keep you waiting!

[snapback]61848[/snapback]

HA!!! I remember...i was there and saw the video!!!!

[lateapex911]

Originally posted by planet6racing@Oct 5 2005, 03:26 PM
I know you all are waiting for me to respond.

So, I'm goinig to keep you waiting!

[snapback]61848[/snapback]

And I still have the "Emergency steering wheel kit" that was taped to the dashboard.......

[Geo]

Oh boy, mine came when I was racing karts.

We had a local street race. Cool course through downtown. We went down Main St. back behind the city hall and up a hill back out on to Main St. OK, there was more to it than that, but the cool part was coming up hill out onto Main St. I was like Monaco for us. Spectators were 3 deep and that was just first practice!

So... after first practice I decided I needed to make a handling change and decided to change the rear track. Jump ahead....

In the second practice session I was on about my 5th or 6th lap and in the middle of the lap my handling suddenly started noticeably changing. Behind city hall there was a fast left/right combo. Well in the left hander the rear suddenly got REALLY loose. I caught it plenty quickly, but it was a big oversteer and I thought "gee it didn't do that last time around" when through the right hander I did a VERY quick 360 only to see my RR tire bounding down the track!

On karts of that vintage you had to remove the rear wheels to alter the rear track and in the middle of the process I got distracted and did something else important and you guessed it - I forgot to finish the rear end. Learned a good lesson.

Kirk's story about Carroll Smith reminded me of this event. It taught me to ALWAYS finish one thing before going on to something else, no matter how important unless something is on fire or some other very immediate danger to someone.

An honorable mention is something that didn't happen to me, but I witnessed in my first SCCA school. A guy in an EP Scirocco spun on a full course caution while in line and going slowly!

[charrbq]

Well, as time would have it, I remembered another stupid thing. I'm sure everyone has, at some time or another, bumped the starter while the car was in gear.
Picture...weekend of car trouble finally diagnosed to water in the tank. Drained fuel, second degree chemical burns, hot July day, swapped tank, car still running bad...total frustration.
Attained the assistance of a certain well-known Honda guru and the owner of the track to help me work on the car and find the problem. Fuel pump check, fuel line check, carb check, electron check...nothing makes sense. They tell me to get into the car and crank it...see it coming.... I'm watching them through the gap in the hood for signals as they stand in front, watching for something to happen. Starter bumped, car in first, track owner sent flying and Honda guru pinned under wheel.
What makes it funny is not just that the track owner didn't get hurt and got a big laugh out of it, but the well known Honda guru was not pinned by his foot, as it looked, but by the toe of his tenny runner.
The car was removed, and they had a big laugh. I was traumatized!
The problem with the car finally cleared up, and it ran great later...don't know why...I suppose it was hungry for flesh.

[Ben 84 RX-7]

When going for my racing license...doing a lead / follow session with my instructor. My brakes (stock rubber lines) on the Celica race car I was using completely went away. I followed him into the turn...nothing at the pedal! I slid past him on the grass sideways! He still issued me my license though. He said because I was able to avoid hitting him! I did not feel like a cool race car driver at that time!

[ITANorm]

Other than losing a wheel and running out of gas (2 different tracks), nothing really spectacular.

[Roy Dean]

I had lent my ITB Suzuki Swift to a friend to do a hillclimb up in Williamsport, PA, last year. Normally, he would've borrowed my tow rig to get it up there, but I needed the truck to tow a rallycar up to the Maine Forrest Rally which was the same weekend. Because his replacement tow vehicle (a jeep grand cherokee) didn't have a brake controller, I told him he could not use my dual axle trailer.

So he went out and rented a uhaul tow dolly. Now, after an uneventful tow to Williamsport, he unloaded the car from the dolly....

Unfortunately for me, he neglected to extend the ramps.

Result was a 1' drop to the ground, only after ripping the bumper of the car off. So, this isn't really embarassing for me, but for him. The best part is a couple of fellow racers witnessed it and got a pretty good laugh.

[dickita15]

i went out to quailfy at new hampshire with $600 worth of brand new hoosiers and on about the 4th lap went into turn one which is the nascar oval and the rear stepped out. I could not catch it and put both feet in. slid the full length of the oval turn grinding the tires away and stopped inches from the wall with the motor running.
in the words on benny parsons i slid so long i thought i was going to starve to death before it was over

once i restarted my heart i put it in first gear and let out the clutch but the steering was turned full right and i drove into the wall knocking out the toe and hurting my fingers from the wheel snapping back.

[RSTPerformance]

OK I/we have many, but this one might be tough to beat...

I took my brothers Audi to the Carisle Car Show in PA (HUGE Car show and swap meet). The car was in the Audi Corral for one day and in our sponsors booth the other day. The car was at the event mainly promoting our Audi/VW sponsor (force5auto.com). While giving "promotional" rides in the car around the car show with a customer/audi enthusiest the left rear tire fell off . With all the "good look" prep that went into the car we never tourqued (or even tightened) the tires on the car.

The worst part was that thier were 100's of people jamming the walkway that we were travaling, so we were going at 1-2 mph (very very slow) as the crowd split giving us room to drive through... The car drove over the tire creating a rather large "sceen" that was obviose to all what happened... as we climbed out of the car to see what had happened, we got a bigger cheer than I have herd at any victory circle for a Nascar race...

ok wait, the even worse part was putting the tire back on the car infront of the 100's of people walking around the car from booth to booth...

LOL, thats one way to attract attention!!!

Raymond "opps" Blethen

[seamus88]

Mine was at VIR this year and one of my friends has the up close and personal video to prove it. On the cool down lap while talking on the radio and waving to the workers I proceeded to drive off the track and launching the car about foot in the air . And at the same time removing my nice spoiler/air dam off the car . Agian a friend of mine directly behind me caught it on video so there was no hiding it.

[MIKEGTR]

Greetings, this is my first post so why not begin my forum career by telling of my bloopers...

We had a night endurance race and several classes were racing with us namely SCCA GT-1 and GT-2.... so the pace car was going farely quicker to allow GT-1 cars to stay at second or third gear... the pace car's (an RX-8) laps were quicker than my hot laps jajajajaja so i had a train of T-1 and T-2 cars behind me unable to reach the pace car... that was so embarrising so i pitted the car along with the other IT cars that had done the same to avoid a black flag. I won the race anyways thanks to it being an endurance race and good pit stop strategy but it was a day to forget... the pace car being faster than me jajajajajajajajajaja

Cheers,

Mike

[Festus E. Simkins]

Well, mine happen several years ago at Memphis. Got to talking while I was changing the rear pads on the RX-7. Forgot to tighten the caliper bolts. First race of the weekend - Second lap I came through the kink after turn one flat out, as usual, up to the M's, brake hard. Right rear caliper comes loose, rips off brake line, makes a lot of noise. Brake pedel goes right to the floor. The M's become a straight. Shoot past the flag station reenter the track. Luckily no one was there. Limped back to the pits. Found another brake line and made the race the next day.

[Catch22]

Left the hood pins out once. Got VERY lucky and discovered that my car has excellent aero as the hood stayed down.
Nevertheless, there's now a sticker on my dash that simply says "Hood Pins"

Earlier this year at an Enduro we were in a rush due to a minor crash. Our co-driver was helping out by doing the fluid checks, and after adding a little oil forgot to put the cap back on.
There was a big wreck right in front of us early in the race, so I didn't think much about all the oil all over the front of the car during the pit stop.
After the race, sitting in impound, I noticed that the car was dripping oil. Not from one spot... From EVERYWHERE. It was very Triumph-ish.
Ended up about 1.5 quarts down, with a very shiney and rust-proofed engine bay, and we won the race. No damage whatsoever.
Again... Lucky.
AND as we were loading up the turn 4 corner worker brought the cap back to us. He actually saw it fall out from under the car during the race.

Some things that are funny that I've not actually done myself...

Backing off the trailer without the ramps in place.

Forgetting that you're on a hill and loosening the rear trailer tie-downs. Watching helplessly as your race car rear-ends your tow vehicle.

Starting the motor with a breaker bar hanging on the crank pulley nut (BAM BAM BAM!!!).

Losing your 12mm deep well socket in the middle of a project, cursing and throwing things :angry: , getting in the car and driving to Sears, selecting a new 12mm socket, reaching in your pocket to pay and discovering... The missing 12mm socket.

Lucky Day - A few years ago a friend drove his car to a DE at CMP. He changed the pads/rotors before he left but didn't tighten one of the caliper bolts. On the drive to the track, the bolt fell out. leaving the caliper hanging by one bolt.
He got to the hotel, and was staring at his jacked up car wondering where he was going to find a Honda caliper bolt in Kershaw South Carolina when another Honda guy pulled up and asked what was up.
Jokingly, he said "I need a caliper bolt, have you got one?"
The answer... "Yep."

And for the award winner...

Installing brake pads backwards. Thats right... Friction material out, backing plate in. Strangely, the brakes didn't work very well.
Even more strangely, the guy admitted that he did that.

[gsbaker]

Originally posted by planet6racing@Oct 5 2005, 03:26 PM
I know you all are waiting for me to respond...

[snapback]61848[/snapback]