Sorry about the car John. Glad to hear that you walked away.
Sounds like a new 2007 would be a perfect donor for your go fast parts.

 

Sorry to hear John & glad your ok, but like merlot said, it may be time to make it into a dedicated race car.

 

I definitely agree about lost hill being tricky going CCW. The exit is has a steep off camber, and combined with unloading of the rear cresting the hill, it's really hard to get the car to grip. I had an off there last time I was out, and that track is a horrible place to have an off due to it's nasty clay dirt runoff areas. That stuff when damp will stick to every orifice of the car, and when dry, is as hard as bricks. It also doesn't help that the track has a really poor road surface, with a patchwork of different pavements. I'm personally not a big fan of that place.

 

The stuff is like GLUE! I took an off once at about 90mph, hit a wet patch of mud and had gunk all through the bumper cavities, the steering linkages, the undertrays, in the wheel wells.......all together probably 40 pounds of it. When it dried it was like pottery clay. Took forever to get it out of there. The only difference in outcome of that OTE and John's....is pure LUCK. I pushed when I should not have. Valuable lesson cheaply learned instead of expensively, but otherwise, exactly the kind of thing he did, just a different place on the track. When dry the soil is almost like talcum powder, very fine and very abrasive, and when it gets spread on the surface of the track from other cars dipping into it, it is very slippery like a bit of water or other liquid.

But it is still a fine technical place to learn to drive. When I first went there I almost quit driving HPDE. It was my second event and it scared me silly and it made so clear that there was a lot about driving that I did not know how to do. You must heel/toe shift there, you must understand how to trail brake there, you must adjust your apex points in consideration of surface camber and you must know how to counter steer when you get slip due to changes in road surface adhesion. You must. Otherwise you WILL go off. Plain and simple. I was not ready for it. Now, I really like the track because it is a challenge to skills and smoothness. You are busy busy busy there......hands, feet, timing...everything. And you can have lots of fun in either a high or low hp car with relatively modest experience. But once you get going "fast", there is little room for error in some of the segments, and we are talking very subtle control inputs and very delicate recovery techniques to scary things coming very rapidly at you. One of the very most difficult is the esses going CCW, and Lost Hill is the other. Going CW the Bus Stop and Riverside are two potentially serious evils, although coming out of the sweeper at the far north end is a tightening radius exit that gobbles quite a few cars. The Lost Hill is dangerous going CW, but not like going the other way.

 

The cardinal rules at any race track when your car goes off are:

1. Don't try and save it, accept your fate and make the best of it.
2. Steer straight.
3. Don't lift, keep a steady throttle and when the car stabilizes then lift off the gas and start steering back towards the track surface.
4. Look for traffic and don't barge out in front of anyone at speed. That just makes things a whole lot worse.
5. If a corner station is nearby, wathc them and they will usually signal when its safe to pull back on track.
6. Stay off the racing line and keep your speed down. There's tons of crap flying off your car and you won't make any friend by dumping this stuff where people are trying to race.
7. Feel the car out and think about coming into the pits.

One caveat, if you're headed for a wall or some other hard object, do your best to avoid it.

 

Damn John! Glad you're okay!!

 

I don't disagree that it's a track that teaches you driving techniques. It has a nice mix of corners where you I just wish the off area was a bit more forgiving so that you're not limping away with 40lbs of mud caked on all your suspension parts and broken bumpers/diffusers (if your car has low clearance).

Obviously, I shouldn't complain too much as it's far better for your car to be caked with mud than to be crumpled against a concrete barrier, but it would be nice to have the run off area's dirt be a bit more compacted in wide-open areas so that when you go off, your car slowly spins to a halt rather than catching on the deep dirt/mud with a good chance of catching a tire and rolling.

What I really wish for is a huge skidpad where I can work on my car control techniques. I want a place close by where you can bring your car anytime to practice. Japan has cool mini-circuits that are open every day where you can just drive in. Am I the only person interested in a place like this? I could see other people wanting to test out their suspension setups or work on their technique without having to hunt for track days or autocross events all the time.

 

John. That sucks. Out with the old in with the new

 

John,

I just got back from VIR (north) and read this thread. Man, it sucks to hear about (and see) your loss. I am very glad you are OK. See, you never should have left the right coast. Bad juju!

Yea, I got a fairly unpleasant suprise coming up the climbing esses at VIR when I set my suspension too tight last year. The rear end felt like it lept up a foot off the pavement and of course, the rotation that followed was supreme. Luckily, as you know VIR is very forgiving and I just mowed the grass for several hundred feet across the meadow.

Funny, we had a Z32 TT do exactly the same thing coming through snake this last weekend. He got too high up on the gators, with a little too much speed and put it into the tire wall before the bridge.

I agree, I think your car could be salvageable in the right hands. It may take a chunk of new frame and a lot of taffy pulling, but it looks like you could get it straight. Just think of the possibilities for dedicated track use then!

Mostly we (Kim and I) are glad to hear you're OK.

Motor-On....

 

Well, if we're going to discuss Buttonwillow - I have to admit that I liked the place. There were a lot of fun turns there considering the flat terrain, especially Lost Hill and the Riverside sweeper. Lost Hill can be tricky, but it's fun to have the rear slide out, get on the power, and as the car resettles, it's regains its grip - lots of fun. Plus, full out in 4th all the way through that long sweeper afterwards is a hoot.

I've had a lot of emails that are telling me it's salvagable. Already had one person look at it and said "no way" - it looks worse in person than in the photos. Regardless, I have another contact that I'll reach out to next week to get a second opinion... What you don't see is that the entire tranny tunnel is shifted over several inches, the firewall is pushed over, as is the frame behind it. If I decide to rebuild, I think it would be with another base Z and I would transplant some of my current parts from the suspension and differential over. As much as I'd like to say I'm made out of money, I'm not, and I have some other important life events on the horizon that I need to consider as well. In the meantime, I'm going to let the dust settle and decompress for a bit to avoid any impulsive decisions...

Again, I appreciate all the well wishes from many of the great people and friends that I've met on here - it really means a lot to see a community so caring and supportive.

 

sorry about your loss John, i dunno . from the pictures it looks bad, the side impact like that would probably shift EVERYTHING, even if it looks 'ok' there might be minor underneath issues you might have to worry about-

well the best way to get over it is to get back in it! best of luck finding a replacement---

as for how to get by it.. "did you get the # of the big rig that ran you off hwy 5?"

 

After I spent more time today looking over what is left of John's Z, I came to a couple conclusions.......
Being an optimist, my first thought was , "wow it is pretty bad, but still fixable" After looking it over ALOT today, and measureing a few things and taking pics (for my body shop guy), I came to the realization of just how bad it is.
The car is now wedge shaped (tapering in the front) and is almost 12" narrower than it was. The front crossmember is also 3" longer on the right side & 5" shorter on the left, and is pushed over more than 13" to the left . As John mentioned, it looks much worse in person and is pretty much destroyed, even the center of the car is now buckled sideways at the drive shaft tunnel . Sure it can be fixed, anything CAN be fixed, but this car is not a good candidate for such a thing. It would require way too many things to attempt to fix it. Like a whole new right side sub-frame & complete front clip (firewall up), completely pull and straighten the remainder of the cars floor sub-frame, not to mention all new pannels, suspension pieces, rack and pinion, on and on, and on.................

 

After we aligned, did the set-up, and scaled his car on friday, it looked like this just before it was loaded onto the trailer and was headed off to its demize at Buttonwillow

 

This is what it looks like now. (the pictures do not do it justice) The impact must have been pretty hard, and although the car is a complete loss, it held up very well and it is a good thing that he was not hurt.

 

That just breaks my heart...

 

So sad - I miss the car. Oh, you were a good machine - you treated me well. Things have cleared up and I'm moving forward. I did have some whiplash from the accident that left some numbing in my left arm for about two weeks, but otherwise I'm OK...



I'm going to look at its replacement for its parking spot tomorrow up in Santa Monica... should be a zinger!

 

Thats sickening to see. Glad your OK

 

What's your thought on a fresh ride John?

 

Something light.

 

That's the direction I went.