I crashed my mom's car. About an hour ago. I was on a lightning quick 5 minute run to my nearby friend to borrow a computer mouse and keyboard. Now there's a little stretch of road with a few fun corners in between the areas where you can't go pedal-to-the-metal. I know it reasonably well. The weather was poor, very wet road. On the way over nothing happened. Under heavy braking, though, sometimes the wheels slipped a bit (where's the ABS gone?). Pretty "normal" levels of grip and understeer for the cornerning speeds and road conditions for the rest, though.
On the way back I had to go over a railway track, with a sharp left (max. 40 kph) flowing out into a 200 meter straight and an S-curve. Now there's water (like actual water. Few feet deep few weet wide. Enough to drown in) on both sides and even though I know the road quite well I wouldn't go all-out there because the water scares the fuck out of me. Now that S-curve ends in a 25 meter straight and then a sharp, but wide righthander. Beautiful corner to stomp through under good conditions. And I have done that before with no problems.
I was approaching the S-curve quite fast, third gear, 100kph. Chose my line through, grabbed fourth, apexed at 120 kph (sounds fast but the corner is quite fast and fluent). Fucking ace, you'd think. And I did think that. And that did me in. Nailing that S-curve gave me overboost on the confidence meter and then in the wide, sharp righthander I overdid it. In hindsight, I don't think it was the speed (I took it once at 80-ish, in the dry of course, and that was pretty straightforward.), because when things went wrong I was doing slightly north of 65. The road is wide enough to take that speed if you get the right line, even in the wet. But my dumb ass mistake was that I changed direction too quick. I tugged the wheel. LAWL STUPID. Understeer bonanza, of course. I wasn't expecting that (mistake number 2, always expect understeer in an FF under hard cornering in the wet) and didn't touch the brakes or tried to swish the car out of it.
Result? Boinking straight through a shallow dry ditch @ 55-ish, clipping a traffic sign board (for the little parking haven that's "behind" the corner) with the right mirror(if that sounds too close for comfort, you're absolutely right), shattering it. I came to a halt in the little parking space that's there, about 10 metres "in/behind" the corner from where I went off. Scared the fuck out of me, of course. Car didn't fall apart, though, so I reversed it out of the parking haven and drove home. Exterior damage is limited to the mirror, but there's definietly something wrong with the underpinnings as the rest of the way there was a weird vibration from the wheel. In the end, however, it's my ego that took the most damage. I've been driving for almost four years now, and in those almost four years I did my fair share of stupid shit. And up till now I didn't have close calls. Never went off, never got in an accident, never got a huge fine, never got pulled over, and then this minor skiddy slip. Fuck.
On the way back I had to go over a railway track, with a sharp left (max. 40 kph) flowing out into a 200 meter straight and an S-curve. Now there's water (like actual water. Few feet deep few weet wide. Enough to drown in) on both sides and even though I know the road quite well I wouldn't go all-out there because the water scares the fuck out of me. Now that S-curve ends in a 25 meter straight and then a sharp, but wide righthander. Beautiful corner to stomp through under good conditions. And I have done that before with no problems.
I was approaching the S-curve quite fast, third gear, 100kph. Chose my line through, grabbed fourth, apexed at 120 kph (sounds fast but the corner is quite fast and fluent). Fucking ace, you'd think. And I did think that. And that did me in. Nailing that S-curve gave me overboost on the confidence meter and then in the wide, sharp righthander I overdid it. In hindsight, I don't think it was the speed (I took it once at 80-ish, in the dry of course, and that was pretty straightforward.), because when things went wrong I was doing slightly north of 65. The road is wide enough to take that speed if you get the right line, even in the wet. But my dumb ass mistake was that I changed direction too quick. I tugged the wheel. LAWL STUPID. Understeer bonanza, of course. I wasn't expecting that (mistake number 2, always expect understeer in an FF under hard cornering in the wet) and didn't touch the brakes or tried to swish the car out of it.
Result? Boinking straight through a shallow dry ditch @ 55-ish, clipping a traffic sign board (for the little parking haven that's "behind" the corner) with the right mirror(if that sounds too close for comfort, you're absolutely right), shattering it. I came to a halt in the little parking space that's there, about 10 metres "in/behind" the corner from where I went off. Scared the fuck out of me, of course. Car didn't fall apart, though, so I reversed it out of the parking haven and drove home. Exterior damage is limited to the mirror, but there's definietly something wrong with the underpinnings as the rest of the way there was a weird vibration from the wheel. In the end, however, it's my ego that took the most damage. I've been driving for almost four years now, and in those almost four years I did my fair share of stupid shit. And up till now I didn't have close calls. Never went off, never got in an accident, never got a huge fine, never got pulled over, and then this minor skiddy slip. Fuck.
