Ken Scheepers Almost Crashes his 7 Sec Mazda RX-8!!

[nyce1]

Here is a video of Ken Scheepers and his 7 Sec Mazda RX-8. He is racing against Louis Corujo on this run and lost control. Great driving Ken as he saves it!



Main Link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7zpv-zV6v0

Backup Link

http://videos.streetfire.net/v...6.htm

[TurboMike]

Must have been a scary ride. Any ideas on what happened?

[Mellon]

what a save and he still ran a 9.1 going sideway haha

[nyce1]

Originally Posted by TurboMike

Must have been a scary ride. Any ideas on what happened?

This is the story of what happened as quoted from his website.


First round of qualifying in the right hand lane was not good! As soon as the tree fell and I let the clutch go, I headed toward the wall and shut it down. Not a good start for the week end! The groove was narrow and VERY SLIPPERY and the data revealed huge wheel spin. What happened to the track?

For the second round, I thought I would do better as all of the previous round top qualifiers had been in the left lane. With more power than I had in Richmond, I anticipated a solid run with less clutch due to the track conditions. My goal was a 7.5 No sooner had I dropped the clutch, the car steered toward the center so I corrected to get back into the groove then next thing I remember, I was headed for the opposite wall in a hurry. Without letting off the gas, I thought I could save the run but that was not to be. All of a sudden I was completely sideways so I stood on the brakes and attempted to correct my direction which at this time was straight for the right hand lane wall. A place I have visited once before in 2004.

Left side Video More Video from the right side.

My road racing lessons flashed through my mind and instinctively did what I was taught in this situation. With the inside of the car filling with tire smoke I remembered that I needed wheel rotation to steer the car so I eased off the brake just enough to be able to turn the opposite direction then the back of the car was rapidly approaching the wall and I prepared myself for the impact. Again, a flash in my mind said' " here we go and this will be the end of this car" but I can only assume the Lord was watching over me because the next thing I remember as I was backing into the wall was the soft impact of what I thought might have been the wing which "kicked the back of the car around just enough for me to gain control and steer it back over the 1320 cone and stop. What had I done and what damage was done? I was so angry with myself, I put it back into first gear and proceeded down the track to the first turn out and drove onto the scales disted with myself.

When I got out of the car, the first thing I did before anyone showed up was survey the damage. To my surprise, the only damage was to the wheelie bars. They were bent but there was no other damage. I can't begin to tell you how relieved I was and looked up into the blue sky and thanked the man above for saving me and my car.

By this time, the track officials and my crew were asking how I was. I was OK and remember say to the track guys, "I hit oil or something, something was on the track". There was nothing on the track. It was driver error, plain and simple especially after I walked the track on Sunday morning prior to the third round of qualifying and saw my tire tracks. Clearly, I had gotten out of the groove twice and paid the price. The skid marks across the center line form left to right were the 106 inches of wheel base. In other words, the car was completely sideways sliding at least 140 mph. How I saved the car is beyond me. I was very lucky to say the least!

With the evening to "repair" the damaged wheelie bars, we were weighing our options and thanks to fellow racer Manny Cruz for offering to loan us a set from his car. Although the bars were shorter than the ones I use, we had the lower bars from Manny, all we had to do was shorten my original upper bars to match the loaned set. Again, I owe many thanks to Tito for taking charge and cutting and welding the upper bars and setting up the "temporary set" , rotating the flat spotted tires in preparation for Sunday morning's 3rd round of qualifying.




http://www.kenscheepers.com/2007_englishtown-1.htm

[$50k Arm]

I didn't see a "save". I saw divine intervention!

Cool video.