sorry for keeping you guys in suspense, i havent been home since the event yesterday. first ill give you all the story, then when my gf sends me the pix ill post them.

first of all, thanks to everyone who was there, everyone was very supportive. second, im fine and not terribly pissed off, so dont cry, its just one of those stupid things that happen.

on to the story...

well i started the auto-x and was having a great time. steve did a great job organizing the caravan and getting everyone there. it was my first event, and the help and tips from the verterans were all very helpful in getting started up.

my first run i took the track fairly slow and easy, didn't push anything, i dont even think i squeled a tire on my first pass. regestered a 61.xxx time.

i knew there was room for emprovement on my second run, so i pushed some of the turns a little harder, and did the slolam (?sp) really smoothly. clocked in a 58.705, almost a 3 second improvement.

then onto my 3rd run. my girlfriend was there with me, and i gotta say thanks to her, she was awesome the whole day. no complaining (even after what im about to tell) and was all in all very cool and social and took a real intrest to it. so i figured id reward this good behavior with a ride on my 3rd and final run. i also wanted to impress her by improving on my already impressive (atleast to me) 58.705 time.

i push it hard from the get go, and am sliding through turns and driving like shit all in all up to the slolam. i figure, this is where i felt most comfortable last pass so id pick up the pace at take it even a little quicker to make up for my sloppier driving early on. and this is where i learned more about "throtle lift oversteer"...

i tapped the brakes before turning into one of the pilons, and the back came loose. i was trying to correct it and still make it through the next pilon, but the car just pitched sideways and ran literally off the runway.

the runway had these little steel light poles (about an inch in diameter and 3 feet tall) so planes could land in the dark. well i plowed over one of those, leaving a nice mark on my front bumper (but suprisingly no dent). the worst part of the crash came past the lightpole into this drainage ditch on the side of the runway. the ditch was paved with asphalt, which really hurt when my car landed on it and plowed through it. it knocked about half of the front facia off my car, tore out a bunch of plastic screws, popped out my turnsignals, tore out one of my splash sheilds, put spider web cracks all in the paint, and chewed the hell out of my front lip. it also knocked my alignment way out of whack (i just got it taken care of, i think my toe in before was somewhere around 11 and 15 degrees on the front wheels, where its supposed to be 0).

luckly my girlfriend was not harmed and niether was i. she was convinced however that it was her fault that i crashed, which i later spent the next couple of hours convincing her that it was my dumbasses fualt for crashing. i got to limp the car then back across the course, and into the parking lot where a lot of good people helped me get my front end taken off and then put back on straight again.

and after everyone else ran for the day i learned that i posted the best novice time on my second run so i won this cool plaque for the event. the crash aside i really had a blast out at the auto-x. even that wasnt so bad, i was pissed my alignment was all out of shape cause i would have loved to have gone again during the fun run session at the end. now im going to have to compete agaist all the guys in sts for my next event at radford, which im planning on going to.

anyways, thanks for reading, ill post some pix when i get them. im fine, im not even pissed, and am excited about getting to do it again in a little over a month. thanks to everyone that was there to talk me through it and give me a hand with the mechanical work. ya'll were awesome!

cliffs: throttle lift oversteer puts novice auto-x'er through an asphalt lined ditch trashing the hell out of the front of his car. nobody was injured, won 1st place for novices, and had a great time.

 

hey this mike with the Hatch, damn sorry to see what happened to your car man still want to see the pics though

here is that website i got the falkens from

http://www.vulcantire.com/

 

Damn dude, that sucks. Lift throttle oversteer has owned many an R, including mine once on a back road. Just remember next time, if you feel the back end coming out, get on the gas, and if that doesnt help abandon trying to continue on and put both feet in and steer straight. Do i smell 98 front end conversion possibly?

 

nah, when you see the pix you'll see that i can get by with what i got for a while. i dont have money for cosmetics at this point in time. the next thing on the list of things to do to my car is some new break pads and rotors. they are in bad shape, altho not the cause of my accident.

 

oh yeah, thanks for the helmet brian, im glad it was on my big ol' dome.

 

damn, sorry to hear about that, at least you had fun :P

 

here are the pix

front left


front right


right side from behind


after some help i got the front off, and it wasnt in that bad of shape, so we decided to put it back on.


"im stupid, so stupid, im big dumb and stupid!"


once it was back together and on

 

wow...once you got it back on it doesnt look so bad...wear your battle scars proudly! Oh yeah, doesnt matter too much, but your car is grounded wrong

 

haha, i remember after i rerung the pistons not knowing exactly where that ground wire went. im assuming it goes in the other hole on the top- right of the cover.

 

It goes underneath that nut to the upper right of where it is now. NOT in the one that is over the cam gears. It needs to be in contact with metal, and the spot over the cam gears doesnt have any.