I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. I had my first bad off at the track this weekend. I had been looking forward to this event for weeks -- the last event of the year. I had spent countless hours preparing my car and setting it up better since the last event.

On my third session out, I completed the warmup lap and starting bringing the car up to speed on the second lap. Everything was going fine until the last corner (Turn 10, Summit Point main). I was setting up for a pass on the front straight and as the tires felt good and warm during that lap, I entered the turn as I normally do. Everything was fine till all of a sudden the rear end started to come around on me with no warning whatsoever. Normally, if I were to take the turn too fast, the car would let me know with a little understeer or a squeal and I'd straighten out the line, roll over the gators into the rumbles and recover just fine.

This time there was no saving it. I countersteered and it felt like I had sticks of butter for tires. No response whatsoever. The car went 90 degrees to the track, went off into the grass on the inside of the turn, slid a hundred feet and slammed into the tire wall at 85 mph. The car then continue to spin and bounce off the tire wall, damaging the front, passenger side, and rear of the car.

This is my street car and I have factory seats, belts, etc. The airbag deployed. After getting towed back to the pits, I was absolutely astonished by how lucky I got. The damage was not nearly so bad as it felt. The tire wall definately saved the car. Damaged were:

Front bumper, driver's foglight, passenger front quarter panel and corner marker, passenger door, rear quarter panel is severely damaged, rear bumper is broken, and one of my taillights is cracked. The car sustained no mechanical damage and I was able to pull the bumpers out and drive home. Still looking at a costly bill for replacement parts/body/paint work though Ended my weekend a day early too, that sucks.

Now I still have no idea what happened. The car has never done that to me before. The oversteer was instant and unrecoverable. I never lifted and I was being as gentle on the throttle as ever. Only things I can think of were that the sun had started to go down and the temps were getting a lot colder. The track was probably cooling off as were the tires. Also, I was running on a lower tank of gas (1/2 tank) than before. The colder air might have yielded a few extra HP from the turbos but that shouldn't have been enough to break rear traction (stock boost, stock sequential twins). Regardless, I don't see why this would happen. I'm going to have to find a way to set up the car to be a little less tail-happy (stock R1 suspension).

Anyway, she'll be on her feet again in no time. Just have to source some parts (new front/rear bumper, pass quarter panel, pass door, tail lights, etc.) If anyone's got a lead on a good deal please let me know.

 

crap man, sorry to hear about your bad day. that is honestly one of my biggest fears with tracking my car... hope you get everything fixed quickly!

 

Glad everything is going to be ok. Maybe racing at the track isn't as safe as everyone makes it out to be . It's certainly safer than the street, but but bad things can still happen.

Good luck getting it fixed

BTW, changing to a 94 (thinner) rear sway bar will induce more understeer.

 

damn that sucks

 

Where you on street tires?
this has happened to me on r compounds a old corvette spilled fluids and some time later i ran over the clean up I was in third gear the second turbo hit and without any warning....I,m off,thankfully just barely touching thr tire wall.

 

Good to hear the damage wasn't too bad. I've had nightmares about sliding across the track and hitting the inside wall like the NASCAR guys do. At my local track (Thunderhill) there's really only one place that could happen and I've had the car crossed up there more that once.

 

I read this and immediately thought that you had hit some fluid on the track. Since you said you pulled off the driving line to make the pass and the "butter" tires, sounds like you could have hit some oil

Anyway, good luck on getting the repairs done. Now is the time to change up the body parts and do things like rolling the fenders, etc before the new paint goes on.

 

I'm very sorry to read your post. I hope everything can be back to normal soon.

Where do you normally take the rx-7 for work? Rosenthal or Browns?

 

Wow man, sorry to hear that. I have seen quite a few people do the exact same thing coming out of turn 10 at Summit Main. Sounds like your car faired better than the previous ones I witnessed though.

Good luck gettin' her back together.

 

damn man im sorry. you seem to be taking this well though.

 

Thanks, guys. It's kinda sad and it's going to hurt the wallet, but maybe it's also an opportunity in disguise

Yea, street tires. Potenza S-02s, 235/45/17 front 275/40/17 rear. You'd think with that setup the car would tend to be less tail-happy.

Yeah, I've spun out my fair share of times and gone "rallying" when I screwed up a turn but this is the first time I've been so completely out of control of the car and helpless as to where I ended up. Really scary feeling.

So far I've done all the work myself. But I've got no experience whatsoever with body/paint work so I'll probably either have to learn quick or find someone to do it. Therein lies the problem though, do I spent a lot and get a great new paint job and maybe '99 front bumper, etc. knowing full well that the next time I go out I could wreck the car again? Or do I just get the dents pulled and bondo'd and a respray and call it good? I really want the car to be as beautiful as it deserves to be, both for driving on the street and at the track but I hate the idea of spending thousands and thousands on the aesthetics just to have them ruined again.

 

I had pretty much the same exact scenario years ago in my FD at Turn 7 Sears Point. Except that I was going for my fast lap and kept my foot in this hairpin turn. The car came around as if in slow motion. After being past 45 degree I straightened the steering wheel to prevent a secondary spin, locked the wheels to rub speed off and got into my usual "Save Me Jesus" position for the crash. The damage was pretty much along the way you described yours. 3 out of the 4 sides were damaged but, could still drive the car back home.

My best advice is to use race cars for race tracks. They are a lot cheaper to repair, you don't have to worry about the front of your car getting sand/rock blasted by crap flying off the cars in front of you and, for relatively little money invested, you can go a lot faster than in a streetcar. A few years ago I sold my 4X Regional Champ GT2-3 spec RX-7 for $14,000. It lapped so much quicker than my FD that there is simply no comparison. (15 seconds faster per lap at Sears Point).

Good luck with the repairs,

Albert

 

In a pinch, I could hit your bumpers with some gloss black from advance auto or something. That's how I'm painting my car

 

Sorry to hear about your incident.....sounds like either fluid on the track or a suspension-piece failure to me. Good luck on fixing her up!

 

I'm with Rynberg.

Something went wrong.

Were the tires rubbing anything?

Anyway don't get Maco get Flynn hehe Seriously I probably have some parts for you.

 

Hrm, noone else reported any issues in that turn during the session, so maybe something with my car? Don't know what it could be besides the things I've already listed (track/tires cooler than before, more boost due to cooler air, less gas in the tank, dunno?) The car was perfectly well behaved driving it home (well in a straight line). No tire rub. Brand new bump stops on both front corners for this event.

I'll take some pics of the damage later. If you have anything that might work (right now I'm trying to source a door and taillight first and foremost as my door was damaged from the inside when the passenger slammed into it and doesn't close anymore). Also I'm still interested in the roll bar/seat/harness, even moreso now than ever

 

If you need any parts from a dealership let me know I can help you out.

 

Starting working on the car today for the first time since the accident. I've never done any kind of body work before, so without any instruction I bought some tools and dived in :P A little experimentation with a stud welder and slide hammer yielded some pretty good results. The sheet metal on the car is really thin so it responds pretty well to being pulled out. I started on the two smallest dents, and I'll leave the bigger ones for last. Here's some pics of today's efforts (sorry didn't think to take any good "before" pics):

Here we've got the smallest dents on the front quarter panel, I've already pulled out one of them. Can't really see the depth of the other from this angle but it's actually pretty deep and there's a narrow crease running all the way to the fender lip. Note that I didn't remove any paint from the bigger dent yet, it just sort of broke off in sheets due to the impact:


Rear and front bumper took about the same damage. You can see tirewall tread marks down the whole length of both. There's a lot of rubber on the taillights and one was broken beyond repair. Two corner markers also died. All the lights have been replaced already:



The passenger slammed into the door with enough force to bend the frame of the door pretty well so it won't close properly anymore. Look at the structure of the door where it runs along the bottom of the window.



Here are the big dents in the rear quarter panel. Too bad this isn't just a bolt on proposition. You can see where the different tires left their impressions



And lastly here's the result of today's work. Both dents in the front quarter have been pulled. I removed the studs with a cutoff wheel and sanded them down just a little bit. It feels pretty smooth but a little more time with the body hammers and the sander and it'll be ready for some body filler. Shouldn't even need 1/8" anywhere. Probably going to roll my fenders before I prep for paint here. Anyone know a place to rent a quality fender roller or do you all do it with a baseball bat?

 

Ugh it just keeps getting better. Took my exhaust off today so I could better work on the body panels from behind. Looks like my PFS catback is ruined. Yay.

 

Man, that sucks...how's the rest of the fix's coming?

 

Coming along slowly, the front quarter is almost ready for paint. The rear still needs to come out a bit so all the bumper mounting points line up before I really go to work on the sheet metal. Tackling that tomorrow. I had to repair the bumper where the rivets broke off. There's some cracks as well and I have no experience repairing the urethane stuff so I might have to learn that as well.

Guess I'll cut out that munged up exhaust bend and weld in a new mandrel bend to fix the catback too. New door is here, might put that on this weekend as well. Gonna be a few more months till I'm done, but it'll be driveable soon.

Just ordered a set of the new Fighters toe link and trailing arms as well as their AST, so a few new treats for the car to get her through as well

 

Sorry to hear about this. Get it fixed and get back on the track bro.

Good luck!!!!!!!!!!

 

Been a long time since i did any body work on the car... Basically used it for the entire season as it was, but since we're in the off-season now, I decided to get some more done. As I said before, I've never done any bodywork or paintwork of any kind before, so this is all new to me. I practiced a few weeks ago with my new HVLP gun refinishing my wheels:

https://www.rx7club.com/interior-exterior-audio-26/refinishing-my-wheels-701231/

Using that experience and a LOT of elbow grease (90% of the work is prep), sandpaper, etc. I converted a used MB bumper to BB. Here's what it used to look like (from above):

Completely sanded down to the bare urethane and ready for primer:


And here's how it sits today. All it needs is some buffing/polishing and I think I'll be happy with it.


After this, I plan to replace the fender, fill and sand the bumper, and repaint the entire damaged side. Still debating whether to repair my old saggy front bumper or replace it with a '99.

 

Looks much better, props on all the hard work paying off. I'd definitely recommend a 99 spec bumper, looks much better, plus larger oil cooler/rad openings for the track

 

Looks good, glad you got it back together ok