Spinning at Buttonwillow (1CW)
 

My Subaru (or maybe it was me) decided to get in touch with its rallying roots this weekend. Here is the video:

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wig-xiC5dpY"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wig-xiC5dpY[/ame]

Basically I was exiting the esses right at about 100 Mph, had a little tank slapper (I've been learning to turn off the VSC and had it in sport to get more of a feeling of car reactions before turning it all the way off, and I was trying to hold fairly steady to let its do its thing instead of having too many cooks in the kitchen) and basically came right to the edge of the bumper or maybe past it (hard to say).

In any event, either I didn't release lock and go straight fast enough as the front wheel went off or the traction control was trying to overdamp the tank slapper and braked the left side as the right lost traction. The end result was one hell of a ride and a very, very dirty car. Luckily I stopped before that wall and the car (and me) seem to be fine (though one bleeder screw on my Sprint kit came a little loose but was fine after re-tightening it).

Tonight I will try and make the video a bit better. I threw this together this morning so I can show people what happened.

holy cow :confused0068:

glad you and car are safe.

It was one hell of a ride!

So much stuff happened so quickly; that was probably the fastest I've ever exited the esses. Usually I was a couple of Mph slower before that. The line felt perfect, my track out was going to lead me right up to the berm and then the tank slapper happened and (this is my speculation as I've been pondering this since it happened) I got pushed out further. I don't know if that was partly the traction control or if simply the slip angle on the rear meant loosing that much distance, but it seemed alright before that.

Like many times that day (I'd just got a new alignment with only camber bolts which seems to have made the rear pretty happy) I was wanting to counter steer as I felt the rear end start to slide, but I knew that the traction control would pull the rear end in and I didn't want to spin the other direction on the next flap (VSC was on sport as I inch towards turning it all the way off). When the car was on its second flap I didn't realize I was so close to the edge and then it all went! I'm happy that I did do some counter steer and try to go straight as things started happening, but I was too late. Also I did both feet in as I came around (probably at around 140 degrees)but that was later than I should have been. I had the right reactions, just not fast enough.

One really interesting thing is that after the car settled into the curve I see I added some steering input. Looking at the movement of my shoulders I think I did it by accident when I was trying to push myself back into the seat. Fascinatingly I think this might have been what caused the tank slapper in the first place. The timing lines up perfectly that the jostle as I tried to push my shoulder into the seat is right when the rear end stepped out!

So many lessons, so much to learn! I accepted that this was part of the sport when I started but that doesn't change the terror when things go south.

You got very, very lucky, not hitting that wall.

Do you have a datalog I can look at? Or, a full res video of the in-car?

It doesn't look like the car got loose to me; it looks like you just dropped 2 and hooked across.

Your foot on the gas and your steering angle on a portion of the track that has less grip caused the slide. Even if you attempt to catch it, your steering input is too slow. Glad you came out okay. Most cars would be on top of the fence with about 3 flips if you dug into the ground a certain way.

I absolutely agree; I was crazy lucky there. My heart sunk fast when I saw that wall coming up on me; it was approaching really, really fast. That the sand stopped me like that is frankly amazing!

I will get a full res video up in a little bit, I need to cut it down to the relevant parts. I also had harry's lap timer running but I don't know how to get the data off of it.

As far as the car getting loose, I can say with certainty that the tail end was stepping out, and the VSC did cause a minor tank slapper (this was well before I got over to the bumper). I wasn't trying to catch that but instead just ride it out as a learning experience. Honestly I don't know if that had anything to do with the actual spin or not; when the tank slapper started I let too much focus go to that and I didn't even realize I had dropped one or two wheels until I saw the video. This was only the second time I have been four wheels off.

I guess this really goes to show how upper beginner to intermediate drivers are the ones in the most danger; we know enough to pickup quite alot of speed but when shit hits the fan we are likely to come out a mess.

I agree, everything I did was too slow there. I tried to go straight after the car was spinning and I put both feet in three fourths of the way across the track. We get told all these things to do when something goes wrong, but it is hard to put it into practice fast enough the first time you encounter it. I'd never spun before this and I had only had one four wheel off event.

All that said I am a little proud that in all that mess I was just too late instead of not doing those things at all.

Also, I am very, very happy to have a dirty car and a crazy video instead of what very well could have been a trip to the hospital.

I can see a tiny bit of yawing; I think the berm upset the VSC. The paint has less grip, and may have been enough to confuse the VSC under the circumstances.

Here is the full-res video from in the car: [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liVdv84e-lg"]In car video of spinning at Buttonwillow - YouTube[/ame]
Unfortunately the outside world is so washed out that it is hard to tell what exactly is going on.

In terms of the yawing that started pretty quickly after I bump the steering wheel trying to get myself into the seat better (I think I bump it once pushing myself into the seat and then bump it a second, harder time as I settle into the seat). With the stock seats I end up with sore arms after a day at the track because I am hanging so hard on the wheel.

Lock your belt next time.

Flip your headrest and lean the seat further, will be much more comfortable

Btw, the in car video is 1080p 60 fps and the car top video is 2.7K 30 fps (and I can put that up easily enough if you want it also). I am really curious to learn more about what happened; I've been pondering it all day (and frankly still been in a little bit of shock since yesterday afternoon). I've been bouncing between "damn that was cool" to "Holly hell that could have been such a disaster".

Talking to people that don't do HPDEs all day it seems like very few (if any) of them realize just how terrifying and bad this really was!

I am doing much better, I've been signed up with a local race shop for a month now to get a custom roll bar and hard mounted race seat installed with six point harnesses. A week from Wednesday I'll be giving my car up for a week and a half as they create and weld it in.

Its hard to say what happened without data logging. But from my view you had traction loss, dropped two wheels and VSC just shifted to rear causing the car to rotate, your reaction was off and so was the car. Obviously in retrospect you can disect it but, I'd say run with all VSC off and back off a bit run 8-9/10ths. Do some karting on the side if you can, rentals even to help improve split second reaction times if you dont do autox.

Thanks for posting something that did not have a nasty ending!