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Click on the picture to watch the video My exciting track incident occurred on August 26, 2000. I was attending a HPDE run by NASA Tri-State. The event was my third track event, and my second at Lime Rock. For those of you unfamiliar with Lime Rock Park, there is a track map available at their homepage here: http://www.limerockpark.com/LRP-TrackInfo/index.html. Perhaps a better view is on the North American Motorsports page here: http://www.na-motorsports.com/Tracks/images/lrp.gif. On both maps the Uphill turn is in the top center of the map. I was driving an essentially bone stock '99 Subaru Legacy 2.5GT sedan, an AWD 4 door with a 165hp flat four. The car only puts about 115hp to the ground, so there's enough power to control the cornering aspect with the throttle but not enough to break the rear end lose with the gas. The car had no added safety equipment, and was running on Kumho V700s. Anyway, on to the story. The crash occurred during the first session (which makes it suck even more - I only got about 16min of track time!). Things had been going pretty well so far, I was feeling pretty smooth. I already had a Porsche 911 spin two cars ahead of me on the very first lap under green, but he didn't hit anything and was fine. No biggie. There was moderate traffic, so I hadn't really had a good lap in the first 15min or so of the session. At the time of the crash I was following an older 911 down the No Name straight, in 4th gear probably doing about 85mph, maybe 90mph. At the end of No Name straight is a pretty tight right hander that goes up a rather steep incline. You clip the apex on the inside right, then drift out to the left side of the track at the top of the hill. (The Speedvision cars run the chicane at the top of the hill, as you may have seen on TV. That's to keep the speeds down so they don't get airborne at the top of the Uphill. For us normal folks, the chicane is coned off and we just go straight at the top of the hill). On the inside of the turn is all dirt, on the outside of the turn is a guardrail probably about 8-10' from the edge of the track. Due to the traffic situation, on the first 8 or 10 laps we had been taking the Uphill really slow - I was downshifting to 3rd and taking the corner at probably only 60-65mph (compared to about 75-80mph the last time I was at Lime Rock). So, this time around the 911 and I had a little bit of freedom from slower cars, and were able to carry more speed into the Uphill turn. Basically, I came into the turn way too hot - I don't think I hit the brakes at all, and I didn't let off the gas on the straight soon enough. As stupid as it seems, I think I just remembered wrong from the last time I was at the track. I was thinking I was able to enter the turn in 4th without really letting off, but I was wrong. Oops. As soon as I turned in I realized, "OK, I'm coming into this too fast." Part of the problem was that I early apexed the corner quite a bit - something I had been doing every time I took the corner, but I think I was even earlier this time, and the early line exaggerated my perception of how fast I was going. Even immediately after the crash I couldn't remember what I did, but I'm pretty sure I quickly stabbed the brakes to try to take off some speed. At the very least I let off the gas completely. Either way, the car started to over-steer. My first thought was that if I wasn't really careful in trying to catch the slide, I might overcorrect and hit the guardrail on the outside of the turn because there is very little runoff room there. As you can see in the video, I froze initially as these bad thoughts went through my head. I then tried to counter-steer some, but my counter-steering was very slow and I didn't get on the gas at all to power out of the over-steer situation. I know everyone (and by "everyone" I mean my fellow Subaru drivers) likes to say, "If the car over-steers, just floor it!" but that was definitely not my first instinct as I visualized myself hitting the Armco on the outside of the turn. Hindsight being 20/20, I think that not getting on the gas was definitely just as bad as braking after turn-in. I'm almost certain that if I had gotten on the gas hard as soon as I felt the rear end start to rotate (and I could feel it before you can really see it in the video) I could have easily saved it. OK, so as the car came sideways and burned off speed it started to slide somewhat in the direction it was pointing, that being towards the inside of the turn. I was not too concerned at that point, "Hey, I'm driving a Subaru, it loves to play in the dirt, not a problem!" Well, it didn't work out that way. I went over the edge of the pavement on the inside of the turn pretty much perpendicular to the curb, and still sliding sideways (uphill). Once the front driver's side wheel got off the pavement, it dug right into the dirt. I think that caused the tail to swing the rest of the way around, and the rear driver's side wheel also dug into the dirt, and the car flipped rather slowly onto the roof. I would guess I was doing maybe 30-40mph at that point, since I had burned off quite a bit of speed. The car ended up on the roof, facing the wrong direction, about 15-20' off the inside edge of the track. As you can see in the video, the roof of the car was perfectly fine until the car actually came to rest, at which point the weight was fully on the front of the roof. At that point the weight of the car flattened the roof and the top of the windshield. The area above my head was basically OK - without a helmet I could have sat up straight I think. With the added height of the helmet I had to duck down a bit, but there was never any pressure on my neck or head during the crash or afterwards as I hung there upside-down. I was completely unharmed, not a scratch or a bruise on me. Once I stopped hearing cars rolling by, I climbed out the window and watched as the wrecker righted the car. Not a pretty sight to watch. Needless to say, I felt horrible. I couldn't believe that I had just wrecked my car (this was my first real accident of any sort), and I couldn't believe that I was the moron who goes out in the very first session of the day and goes off track. I really felt guilty about ruining the session for everyone else. Although some people at the track suggested I should drive the car outside the facility and then call the police to report an "accident", I did the honest thing and told my insurance company (USAA) exactly what had happened. Part of it was just my own tendency to "do the right thing", and part of it was the fact that my brother is a police officer, and I know he'd never fall for that one, so I wouldn't expect another officer to fall for it either. It took about 4 weeks, but after investigating the circumstances of the crash and the legal aspects of it all, USAA decided to cover the claim. Of course, they dropped me when my policy came up for renewal 5 months later, but that's OK - I got my $20k from them. Patrick Olsen <thepno95@earthlink.net> Click here to see Patrick's new opentrack car.
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