So I wrecked my car...

[tuj]

Begin track day, get the tires changed to BFG R1 and do tech and drivers meeting, hook up transponder, do transponder parade lap, all goes well.

Open practice: get Harry's LapTimer running and head out for 5+out lap of getting to know the track with my new setup. I have driven this track 3 times previously, all on bone stock suspension and RFT's. The BFG's have never been heat cycled, so I know its not ideal to run a full track day on them, but I just want to see what they can do.

Practice cont: I go out behind a class C FRS (I'm in class B). He is fast. He's beating me on corner exits, and on braking. I decide to let him leave and focus on my own line and skills before getting overtaken (point-by) several more times. I start smelling the tell-tale smell of brakes getting cooked and feel a little fade and my inability to lock the wheels.

Practice post: Immediately my dedicate crew chief (wife) jumps into action with the pyrometer and starts taking tire temps across the treads. Some data was interesting. For a track that has a lot more left's than rights, the LF tire actually heated the most, and surprisingly evenly with only -1.9 camber up front. Pressures were set at 34 cold and came out at 37 hot. We did not get into the operating window of 180-200, we were well below that with a peak tread temp of 142.

Practice post cont. I analyze the time...this can't be right... On the new setup, higher spring rates, EBC yellowstuff pads, r-compound tires, lower CG, AST4100 shock... I was setting EXACTLY the same times as I was with the stocker setup with RFT's. Kind of depressing. The sad thing is that I really had no idea where I am losing the time. I'm braking hard, so hard that when I came back into the pits, I had smoking coming out of my brakes. Maybe its corning forces, and I'm not turning in hard enough and committing the car?

Anyway, this will all be for naught in a second.

Heat 1. I get gridded up. I decide to do a single press of the DTC system (this de-activates the yaw protections, right?) because I felt like maybe that was interfering with my ability to get out of the corners. Off we go, around curve 1, left hander 2nd gear no problem, car feels plenty planted accelerating out. Around gentle curve 2 which leads into braking zone for curve 3 which is tight left on concrete. Get all braking done in a straight line, happens fine, turn the car close to the inside wall for minimum distance and accelerate, tracking right.

This is where is all went wrong. I'm accelerating out of that corner, the pavement has transitioned to asphalt at this point. As I increase the throttle, I get snap oversteer that kicks the back end out to the right side. I input counter steer immediately but the degree of oversteer is too great and I am a passenger riding towards a concrete wall, which i hit, and deploys the driver and both side airbags.

Now, I have driven this track 3 times previously, and I have driven it with DTC one press off, one long press off, and with it fully on. I am really trying to understand what I did wrong in this accident OR if something broke on the car or something went wrong. This part of the track is an extremely unusual place to have an accident.

I surmise a few things could have happened:

1. I was too quick on the throttle. I'm not sure of this because I felt I was being gentle with the throttle and the oversteer was not progressive at all.

2. E-dff too slow to react. The right-rear wheel got all the traction and essentially torque-vectored me into the wall. Unlikely.

3. Rear toe link broke? We will investigate this on the lift today.

Damage: 3 airbags, plus the left front strut SHEARED IN HALF (yeah, seriously), probably control arms are bent, tie-rods, probably wheel bearing and knuckle. Who knows what else, bumper and side panel.

But the short story that's important is that I walked away.

[E82MSport]

That's terrible news but I'm glad you are ok. Been there too, it's an awful feeling when you wreck.

Is it possible there was oil or coolant on the track? Let us know what you find.

[tuj]

Track surface looked clean, but I will say this, we had more accidents later that day than our club usually has ALL YEAR. It was weird. All in different spots.



I hit the middle of the last concrete barrier. 2 more meters and I would have had grass...



Front strut destroyed. I mean sheared.



Mi Esposa.

[Elsabor67]

Damn. Sorry to hear. Do you have any pics of the damage and can it be fixed. Glad to see you walked away.

[John_01]

I'm sorry to hear this happened. That looks like an unforgiving track.

R compound tires can be less forgiving than street oriented tires. But I realise you have driven on R-comps before. The same goes for firmer suspension, its generally less forgiving and more prone to have the traction break away. However I don't think there is any obvious explanation based on what you wrote. My only question is about the damper setup. If the rear dampers are set too firm they could generate enough weight transfer to cause snap oversteer. With medium / soft damper settings all round, the car will responds best to smooth driving inputs. When you push the limits with softer damper setting, there will more of a delayed response and it will give you more awareness of what is happening. Also the handling will reflect the balance of the springs and sway bars which is important to evaluate as a first step in suspension tuning.

[tuj]

This was just snap. Like I increased accelerator position gently and things instantly went out of control. I realize driver error is usually the biggest factor in accidents, but more and more as I replay this one in my head, I don't see what I could have done. By the time I impacted, I had full right lock dialed into the steering. I was not yet in a fully developed spin so I didn't go 'both feet in'.

It felt like when you hit black ice. The track surface looked clean but maybe something was amiss. My telemetry was set to record starting at the start/finish line which was still about 300m away, so I don't have any telemetry of the accident.

[Dackelone]

Sounds like someone must have "leaked" something onto the track surface. It could have also been a toe link, but I think you would have felt that before the turn.

It also sounds like you have a cool head on your shoulders and you will get past this bad incident. Sometimes we just don't know how things happened.

[Kgolf31]

This sounds like a classic case of going from a RFT, straight to a R-Comp.

R-Comps do NOT give you any warning when they let go, when they go it's in a snappy fashion as you experienced.

Unlike a street tire, such as a Rival S or RE-71R, they get louder as they achieve max grip, and start to drop off in a linear fashion. You can almost play with this fine line.

Also, just a statement, you mention about your lap times and how they were the same as prior. This is usually most likely due to you throwing a ton of parts at the car and not maximizing the previous setup, knowing the limits of that and learning how to drive past those on the new setup.

[chris82]

Awful to hear, I know you just went through a lot putting that whole setup together too...

I think KGolf may be right. Have you been on an R-Comp before? I've heard the same thing about them, just break loose without the warning a street tire gives

[tuj]

Yes I drove my RX-8 at Mid-Ohio several times on Dunlop SSR r-comps and did several seasons of ES Miata autox on V710's.

I am willing to admit this may well have been a case of driver error, I'm just trying to understand why. In practice I was being much more aggressive with the throttle exiting corners and I was not getting any sort of intervention from the DTC/e-diff that I could tell; it was just putting the power down.

[squidge]

That really sucks. Did you have track day insurance by any chance? I got a policy through Lockton for my upcoming day at Thunderhill, ran about $200. I figure it's a wise drop in the bucket compared to everything else. It's an unpredictable environment.

[tuj]

Trackday insurance not offered in PR.

[John_01]

I read something in your post that does seem a cause for concern. I think your cold pressure is 34 PSI which is much too high. That will make it difficult to get the tire to heat up. Also I suspect the tyre is probably not designed to work at such high pressure. I know some other R-comp tires on the 135i will give good grip at around 31 to 32 PSI hot. If you get above that pressure the contact patch of the tire may become too small which is a problem in itself, apart from the tyre not reaching the correct temperature. On tracks I have driven on Toyo R888 it is more normal to start with a cold presssure of around 21 to 23PSI and reach a hot pressure around 30 to 32 PSI.

[tuj]

Originally Posted by John_01

I read something in your post that does seem a cause for concern. I think your cold pressure is 34 PSI which is much too high.

http://www.tirerack.com/images/pdf/w...BFG_R1-R1S.pdf

Rec. Hot Pressure for AWD/RWD: Track: 36-42F / 36-42R.

I was running 37 HOT. I will also note we never got the tires up to "operating temperatures". The highest temp we saw with the pyrometer was 142 on the LF outside shoulder. Wear/temps were pretty consistent across the surfaces surprisingly. Windows is supposed to be 160-220.

[John_01]

Fair enough. I admit I'm confused by the recommendation from the PDF file. 40PSI seems like a pressure you would use in a standard road tire, not an R-comp. Obviously I am not familiar with BFG tires.

[chris82]

Where did the other cars go off that day? Same place?

Maybe a fluid leaked out from another car

[tuj]

Fellow racers, especially those running the BFG R1 tires! I talk with several experts over the last two weeks regarding my accident. In Practice, we achieve tread temps via pyrometer of 120-140F across the treads fairly evenly after 5 laps, starting at 30psi cold, and ending 35psi hot. Camber not an issue (Thanks Henry Walters)!

This temperature is problematic because El Tunque is so smooth it does not heat these tires fast enough using the recommended BFG pressures of 36-42psi HOT. In Heat 1, we increased to 37psi hot, and the rest is known. Tire temps had dropped dramatically, and I was caught out exiting the 'drag race hairpin'. It was like I was on ice, which I realize some of you PR drivers may have never experienced!

What I did not realize is that the R1 develops only 0.5-0.7g under 100F; that is worse than a snow tire! At 170F-220F, it will grip 1.4g-1.6g.

I talk to Gavin at Tire Rack today and he suggested running below the min pressures by 1-2psi and checking temps every few laps and dropping pressures as needed. Therefore we have a plan on how to make Capt. Slow into Senior Not-So-Slow.

[E82MSport]

So what's your plan for the car? Patching it up and getting back out there?

[Ginger_Extract]

Sad to hear about this. Our community is already so small, and losing another is never good. There is always that risk when we go out on track, that we may put the car into the wall, total it, or worse. In fact, although I've largely been pretty lucky on track - only the underside of the car and the paint has taken a beating, my worst "on-track" accident was at Autocross. With as much power as these cars make, it takes no time to hit 70+mph on our courses, and I met my maker last year. $1800 to repair the car with a substantial hookup for being in the repair industry at the time. Hopefully the car can be repaired, and you can get back out there and have fun again.

My thoughts are that as sad as it is, you brought the wrong weapon to the fight. Seems like those particular tires are not a good pairing with your local circuit. The symptoms you described 100% match R-comp tires that were too cold and unable to provide any sort of friction, under cornering, or braking. No amount of driving talent can compensate for cold R-comps, they are simply undrivable.

Good luck, and keep us posted.

[tuj]

Guys, I am still waiting for my local mechanic to assess the car. He unfortunately has had an emergency issue with his mother, so things are kind of on hold...

I've been trying to guesstimate the damage from what I saw:

-front left suspension assy. (LCA,UCA,hub,knuckle, etc)
-front bumper
-front left strut sheared in half, but I have the OEM parts at home!
-driver wheel airbag
-2x side curtain airbags (these are hard to price)
-the trunk latch, the handle...not even sure how this broke on impact.

Not sure what else is damaged. The rim and wheel looked surprisingly ok. The airbags are probably my biggest concern as those are expensive. Everything else, the bumper and the front suspension I have been able to locate for fairly reasonable prices.

My race wheels won't clear the OEM suspension, so I'm slowly talking with RyanDavies and his buds about some JRZ coil-over's to upgrade my setup. I'm also thinking about maybe even a set of tire warmers to get the r-comps up to temp. We only do 5-lap heats in our sessions, so seems like they would be beneficial. Next time I will go with Hoosier R7's or the R1S compound. Its weird because obviously our ambient temperatures here in sunny Puerto Rico are quite high. The track day I crashed it was 90F degrees.

So the plan is:
-get the assessment of the damage
-rebuild to OEM
-save up for JRZ's
-install the JRZ's
-meanwhile find someone who will do track day insurance here.
-get back to lapping!

Thanks for your support fellow racers!

BTW, here a video of a clean lap of the track:

[E82MSport]

In regards to track insurance, talk to Lockton Motorsports. I've been using them for a few years now. They seem really good to work with and if you can put your event organizer in touch with them, most likely they will cover the HPDE event. The key is getting the head of the event to talk to them. I've tried in the past to get HPDE insurance on events that didn't show on their site and it was a no go. I finally talked to the event organizer and had them contact Lockton and they approved the event. I understand you're in a special situation being in PR but...

Worth a shot.

[tuj]

Talked to Lockton as an individual, they said 'no go'. But I'll have the event organizer talk to them.

so here's the damage done:
2x stabilizer clips = 152
2x stabilizer links = 110
1 abs cable = 151
1 control arm long = 150
1 control arm short = 130
1 front bumper = 684
1 crossmember = 845
2 lateral airbags = 1080
1 terminal assembly = 143
1 rack and pinion = 1705
1 steer wheel air bag = 1124
1 headliner = 1265
1 headlamp link = 29
1 liner = 165
1 stabilizer bar = 260
1 shock absorber = 364
1 seat belt = 227
1 brake hose = 60
Labor = 2500 est.
Total = $11,114 USD.