Losing Control

Monday, February 15, 2010

So, I've been autocrossing for about 10 years now, as I mentioned in an earlier post. Even with the experience I have, I still make mistakes that make me look like a rookie every once in a while. This is one of my favorite pictures of all time involving me on the track. There are a couple things you'll notice about this picture if you look closely. The six pylons and the timing light give you some hint about what is going on here.

This is the finish line. If you hit a cone after the finish line, you're run is counted as a DNF. I am in the process of completely losing control of the car. If you look closely, you can see me wrestling to keep the car under control. After this picture was taken, the car overcorrected, spun, and took out a couple post-finish pylons. DNF! Good did come from this mistake though; I got a heck of a ride and Bill snapped this amazing picture.

I had another great ride this past season where I completely lost control while giving a novice an intro ride in my car. Needless to say we both got the ride of our lives. We lost it into the grass sideways. Grass was flying through the car between the two open windows! Once we finally settled, we had trouble getting the car restarted. A day later, the car flashed every warning light imagineable upon startup. I had to disconnect the battery to reset the poor thing and bring it back to life. All in all, it was not happy about the crazy spin we put it through.