Haha! That is great! Thanks.

I didn't mod the cover at all, straight stock.

Well, it was a great weekend at the track, until this....

I am fine. No injuries.

Car in front of me lost control and spun in Turn 9 at Willow Springs. He was heading to the inside of the track so I went to the outside. Driver said that he failed to hold the brake and then his car reversed direction and came back to the outside. I tried to turn to miss him but it was too late. My right front hit his right rear. My speed was over 90mph.

Yes, the video cam's were working! I will post up the video tomorrow.

That makes me hurt just looking at it. I'm so glad you made it out ok. If it makes you feel better, I've seen worse get back out on the track. Looks like it missed the main body structure

I've always admired your driving back and forth from the races

If you were in Texas, you'd be welcome to grab a carcass or two and any body panels you needed.

Really glad only the car is banged up!

Look forward to the posts if getting her back on track.

Mike

Sad to see this Tom :/ Glad to hear everyone is okay though

Looking forward your next built. Can't imagine you'll bother chopping a roller to replace the front-end on this one? Saddest part is seeing your hobby being flushed down the drain until you get back on new wheels really. Few months?

Sorry to see that, glad you were not hurt. Sounds very similar to the accident that totaled my 924s at CMP. I was lucky and found a roller for $200 and moved everything over, including the cage.

Best of luck and definitely get back on the horse.

Ug, that looks like it hurt!! I'm very happy to hear you are ok. Did they take you to the medical center for a check out?? Feeling OK today??

The wheel has been driven pretty far back but it may be fixable. A million years ago when I worked with some buddies to go dirt track racing, Steve the driver got tangled up and the front got bent. During the next week, we took it on a trailer to the local park where there was a HUGE tree, we heated the bent parts and pulled the bent frame parts back into shape by hooking to the tree and pulling with the truck with the car strapped to the trailer. Primitive but we were teenagers and had nothing better.

Looking forward to seeing you back on track.

Oh Tom!!

Glad you are Ok. So sorry what happened
The important thing is you are OK

Arrrrrgh!!! Arrrrgh!! Glad you are okay. I can believe I am hearing about another pontetial ABS roll back. This needs to be addressed some how.

A busy time ahead of you for sure.

Sorry to see this Tom; glad you're OK. This is really difficult to see since I struck a deal on a 944 yesterday; my plan was to follow your tracks but in 944 Spec rather than spec Boxster.

Mike

Oh man... so sorry Tom. Glad you're OK but the poor Boxster. What are your thought on the Boxster's future?

+1 to what the others said.
I think Rick, pretty much got it right:

Tom, Glad to hear you are OK. There are other cars out there to work with. Only one Tom.

Wow! Tom glad you're ok to race another day. Car can be replaced you can't

Ugh! So sorry to see, but as others have pointed out, glad you and the other driver are okay.

Have you had time to evaluate the condition and make a determination on its future?

Thanks for all of the well wishes!

Feeling a little sore today in the shoulders but otherwise physically fine. Mentally, I have re-played the situation in my head about 1,000 times and can't see anything that I could have done to avoid the contact. Emotionally, I'm a little pissed off but understand that this is part of the deal when you go out onto a race track.

The car was towed to Pro Motorsports in Burbank, CA last night. Tyson Schmidt (who originally built the car when he was at HRG) took a quick look and texted me saying that it would buff out. :)

Tyson said that it looks worse than it is (in his opinion) and should be repairable. It will probably take a couple of weeks to get a full list of all of the parts needed.

The plan is to get the car repaired and get back out there. The Spec Boxster 2.0 build will start shortly.

My wife has been wonderfully supportive in every way.

Here is a video of a walk around of the car as it was being loaded onto the tow truck. Racing video coming tonight or tomorrow.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/POK8iEXpdvo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Tom, are you being serious or sarcastic here?

If serious... my advice is do not get trapped in endless repairs bills - car #254 will never 'feel' straight anymore/anyway. Second advice is to buy a roller and swap the racing bits over bud. I bet it will be 50% cheaper that way and you'll be back on the track twice faster also I'm sure

Ouch. I really hate to see that happen to you Tom.
You've been my inspiration the past several years as I've started driving DE and working towards my own Spec Boxster build and goals.

I have no doubt you'll be back at it and continue with the success you've had. Give'em hell!

I'm really glad to hear you are ok Tom. I was nervous for a while. The car looks much better than I expected. I think the race video will show what a truly bad collision this was.

I hear what you're saying and I felt the same when I first looked at it. The bottom line is that the car will be disassembled and then sent to a professional body shop for evaluation. Then we'll make a determination whether to repair or replace the chassis.

I appreciate your comments about endless repair bills and it never feeling right again. For now, let's wait and see what is really damaged and how badly. I hope that will point us in the right direction.

Glad you're doing fine, Tom.

Sad to see the damage, especially since it was caused by someone else's mistake. But that's the dark side to the sport we love and sign up for.

I'll be at COTA in 2 wks. Hopefully it will be a clean 3 days.

Good luck in whatever direction you go - rebuild or replace. Hope you're not down for too long.

Bummer. Glad you're okay. FWIW I think it might not be worth the effort to fix. Mine was hit in the same corner (although not quite as badly from the looks of it) and was written off.

https://s4.postimg.org/tz3eissyl/Scr...1_32_30_PM.jpg

https://s14.postimg.org/6nuo0jztt/Sc...1_33_22_PM.png

Might be cheaper just to buy a roller or something with damage in the rear and swap your parts over, pending the results of the assessment of course. Best of luck.

Tom, good luck with the estimate. Really hope it turns out to be a quick job for you and the car.

What a mess. Just had a look at the very first pics you posted on this thread and I'm bloody speechless. Racing is a nasty game.... and believe me when I say I know how it feels... I've just trashed a US$50k (worth) Superbike a few months ago. In my case its totaled, so is my shoulder lolll

Keep us posted man and good luck again

Tom, glad you're Ok!
Now get that baby fixed and back on track. I live vicariously through your videos, and I will need another fix soon. Or it's back to Seinfeld reruns -- totally pathetic.

Sorry for the loss.

Agree with nine8six concerning the rebuilt.

Regards, Markus

Sorry to see this, but glad you're ok Tom.

Race Vid!!!!!!

That sucks. Hope you can get your way clear soon!

I think I read that your boxster was a 97. If so, it would be a good time to upgrade to the 98.5-2000 front subframe. I'd also throw in some bigger S coolant tubes. Over heating doesn't seem to be a problem once you're on the track but guys that have them seem to run a little cooler when stationary. I wouldn't trust the rack and pinion even if it looks like it survived untouched. I've seen guys have issue down the road with those. They do well in street cars but really get abused on track cars and don't take well to getting hit.

Here is the video of the impact from Saturday...

This is the second race on Saturday. I had finished 4th of 14 in the first race so I started this race in P4. At the start, I got a good run and was able to get to 3rd. Then 1st-4th were all within a few car lengths of each other for a couple of laps. Subsequently, the white car that spins in front of me caught our group and passed 4th and then passed me to move into 3rd.

The video below starts shortly after that. After working on the camera system over the holidays, I now have three cameras: front view, rear view, and a camera pointing at me.

The video starts as I upshift to 5th as I enter Turn 8 and then downshift to 4th on the short chute before entering Turn 9. The white car ahead takes a highly non-traditional line as he cuts down to the inside of the turn and then starts to spin. All the while I am taking the more traditional line to the outside.

When I saw the spin carrying him towards the inside of the turn, I maintained my line towards the outside of the turn intending to pass behind him.

Then his car reverses direction and starts to come back towards the outside. Oh crap. Let me say that again: Oh crap. For a moment, I thought that I might get by but I quickly see that the angles and speeds are not working in my favor. Damn, I am pretty screwed at this point. I turn left to try and miss him but we hit. Of course, this all happens pretty quickly at 90mph.

My car careens off his and heads into the desert run off area. The impact damaged the front suspension so I don't have any steering and I have the brake on the floor but the car doesn't slow much as I head straight towards a 3-4 ft berm in front of the track retaining wall. The car hits the berm pretty hard but it slows me down and I come to a stop on the backside of the berm. As I was going over the berm, I remember thinking: please don't flip over!

As soon as I come to a stop, I unlatch my belts and pull down the window net in preparation for the car possibly catching fire. I wanted to be ready to get out quickly if needed. The car doesn't seem to be on fire so I take a few breaths and then put my left arm out the window and tap my hand on the roof to let the track officials know that I am conscious and ok.

The edited video ends at that point, but then I re-attached my belts and waited in the car for the safety crew to arrive.

There were two other 986Forum members in this BSR race, Branimir (bkovac) and Justin (jedd). Branimir was right behind me and is going to send me his video. Justin was further back in the pack.

The in-car video shows that my harnesses keep me in the seat and I cinch them up pretty tightly for exactly this reason. My head flops around a bit from the impact but the HANS device would have presumably prevented over-extension of my neck. With that being said, my neck and shoulders were sore the next day.

Video from Race 1 and the start of this race coming soon!

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/o_x6Yx___RQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Oh man, you took the right line. If he would have stayed on his brakes, you would have probably gotten by.

Yes, my car is a 97 and I appreciate all of the advice and recommendations!

Ouch -- hard hit indeed. The berm looked even worse.

With the white car rolling back onto the racing line, that is why they teach the two foot in rule for when you lose control on track to prevent shooting backwards on track. Might not have helped, but you can see in the video that the brakes were not fully engaged on the white car as there was quite a bit of rolling backwards (as opposed to sliding).

Mike

Crazy vid
 

Was that a wheel flying up in the sky?! what a hard trash...

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads02...1487147990.jpg

No, that's not a wheel, that's the fuel filler flap. ;)

Hope the guy in the white car is also OK. Getting hit from the side without knowing it can be very hard to the body, because you're not as prepared as somebody seeing what might come next.

Regards, Markus

Certainly the fact you walked away is excellent news, but it is actually encouraging to see how well the boxster took the hit. Of course on the streets the airbags would have deployed and a standard seat belt would have much less restraining. I fear a driver with standard seat belts may have fair less well.

Good luck and always enjoy the show

Ugly all the way around. Just not a lot you could have done but what you did. Just glad you were safe and as you said - hit that berm straight on and didn't flip.

Ouch that was a hard hit, and when I saw that berm coming up I though you were going to go flying.

The white car said he released the brake? From looking it almost seems like he never pressed it.

I have had "ABS Rollback" one time, it looked very similar to that, and was pretty scary as I went rolling back across the track at a good clip even though I was pressing as hard as I could on the brake. I wonder if in a spin I should quickly release and reapply the brake when the car is sideways? Not the time that I want to be experimenting...

Glad you are ok, dang. That was a hard hit...

Sorry, I should have mentioned that the other driver was also fine.

You know it might just be this --
I remember hydroplaning and heading backwards down 10-11 at COTA -- I wasn't slowing down despite what I thought was brakes to the floor. I then jumped on them again and quickly slowed down and rotated back around and got control of the car.

I figured it was just that I was hydroplaning (it was raining HARD!).

Will try to keep that in me mind when my Boxster rotates the next time.

Mike