Why Am I Risking My Life In Other People’s Cars, Again?
It’s been a tough few days for the racing community. Well-known Carrera Cup racer Sean Edwards was killed over the weekend while coaching a reasonably experienced driver in a GT3 Cup car. I wrote a piece for Road&Track yesterday discussing the risks of instructing and talking about a crash I had with a student in 2009 that left me shaken, if not stirred.
Apparently, at about the same time I was writing about having bad crashes with student drivers, my friend Jason Tower was experiencing one of his own.
According to Jason,
Instructed for nsxpo at vir yesterday, had a big off last lap of the last session. my novice student entered the esses at 110 mph and lost control, we went off track right and nosed into the tire wall at 90 mph. my (stock) seat broke and i somehow ended up in the back seat area! amazingly we both walked away, although i’m a little sore this morning
When I spoke to him later on in the day, he was ruminating about how hard an airbag can punch you in the chest (the answer is: pretty hard). He also shared with me that, as the tire wall approached, he felt the crash would be fatal. Ironically, it wasn’t the impact that killed Sean Edwards; he was trapped in the car while it burned. Personally, I’d rather die when the car hits. It took emergency personnel three hours to remove Sean’s charred corpse from the GT3.
Jason’s going to coach again, and I expect to coach for a long time yet to come, but there are plenty of instructors who are giving it up. Too much risk, too many unknowns. I don’t blame them, but I’m not ready to join them just yet. I’ll be instructing at select TrackDAZE and NASA-Great-Lakes events in 2014 and am available for private coaching (wink, wink, ladies) across the United Stats and Canada. Just go easy on me when we’re on track, okay?
Categorised as: Racing, Stuff I wrote, What I think
Unfortunately, there are inherent risks in auto racing, or just driving…or living.
Years ago, a friend of mine was killed when he got out of bed at night and tripped on a rug, hitting a door jamb with his head, you just never know how your going to get it.
The FAA used to require Spin Training for student pilots, but so many students and instructors were killed doing the maneuver(despite the fact that a plane has dual controls), that they dropped the requirement. Now we have airline pilots, who can’t recover from a spin.
Training is emphasized for stall recovery, but a stall can quickly develop into a spin, and the only training for that, is reading a textbook.
I’m a firm believer in that… ‘You only really know, what you do’_aikiv
With autos, one should first drive fast in the dirt, and learn how read the beginning of a slip and catch a car in a slide. If that isn’t available, a big un-obstructed paved area with a course of traffic cones for induced slip and recovery training. And, you just can’t beat auto-X for sharpening the senses and skills.
If these skills can’t be demonstrated, then training on the course has to limited to the fundamentals at reasonable speeds.
And today, no one should be dying in a fire on a track. I still see so many late responses to track incidents, it is criminal.
Not sure how relevant this will prove to be, but it does involve the right-seat-sage-left-seat-neophyte scenario. Thing2 (our almost sixteen year-old), had finished driving school and gotten her permit on a recent Saturday (Oct. 5th). The following Tuesday, I’ve got a carless friend who needs a ride home. “Great,” I thought, “Ashley can drive, and gain some more experience.” Ten minutes later, I’m directing her to get into the center lane behind another car that is waiting to turn left in heavy traffic, and before I can say “Stop, dammit!”. she follows the left-turning car in front of us, and we collect a speeding Sonata in the entire passenger side. Being as I was the front-seat passenger, I took the brunt of the collision - ambulance, ER, X-rays, CT scan, etc. I came through with no major injuries, but our once-pristine ’95 Subaru Legacy, with 75,000 miles, is now a parts car. My background is in education, and this proved to be quite the eye-opener - one can’t be precise enough with one’s instructions, where someone who is still learning is concerned.