A safety reminder about racing 25 year old cars

#1

Over the last month, I’ve been working on an SE30 car to get it a little more enduro ready. We went through all of the systems and had it what we thought was race ready. This board has been a huge help in getting the car ready.

This morning at around 9:15, in the morning qualifier, the master cylinder totally failed. I went for the brake, the pedal dropped to the floor, and I went hard into the Sebring turn 10 wall at somewhere around 100mph. The hit was scary hard. I’m a bit busted up, and the car is a mess.

Moral to this story: Never forget that we are racing 25 year old cars here. I did not do cheap prep. I went through the systems of this car, and would not have thought that a master cylinder was an item that needed to be replaced as a part of standard maintenance. There are many other items on these cars that are old that many of us might not be thinking about. We need to be thinking about them.

Also, I was in a nice RaceTech halo seat, and the car went into the wall close to sideways. I would never want to take that hit with a cheap seat and one of those head restraint nets.

Check your stuff people. Make sure your brake, steering and suspension systems are in excellent shape. Change parts that are old even if they are not broke, or your whole car will break.

#2

Scott, I’m sorry to hear about the accident. Glad to here that you are okay.

Stuff does happen.

See you later in the year.

RP

#3

WOW! Sorry to hear about your experience and thank you for sharing. I hope your recovery is quick and you get back to racing soon.

You bring up great points about saftey and maintenance.

Luckily you had chosen to make sure you use good saftey equiptment.

I am curious about your seat mounting system. Was your seat mounted to the factory mounting holes? If yes was there any deformation of the floor pan?

I am currently building a car and have not yet mounted a seat.

#4

What was bad about Scott’s crash is the broadside hit. That’s dangerous because there isn’t much of a crush zone to absorb energy and the driver restraint system is not at it’s best in resisting lateral movement of the driver. I don’t know what his impact speed was, but judging from the damage, I’d guess 70mph.

The veterans have seen some pretty bad e30 crashes. A couple that come to mind are Jim Levie, Robert Patton, Robert Chrysler, and me…all at Road Atlanta. To my knowledge, none of us had floor pan deformation at the seat attachment points. All the hits were hard enough to destroy the car.

The harness takes most of the load restraining the driver in an impact, except a rearwards hit. The shoulder straps being anchored to the cage, aren’t going anywhere. The left hip strap goes to cage or rocker which is really tough. The weaker points are prob the right strap and to a lessor extent, the anti-subs.

I’m a total cheapskate, but I’ve learned my lesson and am willing to open the wallet for safety gear. My halo seat saved my bacon in it’s very first race weekend.

#5

Its hard to say what the hit speed was. I believe the car is usually going around 110 mph at the brake point, and there was nothing to speak of. The car was semi-sideways when it hit the grass, and then it smashed the wall. I would guess the impact speed to be north of 90, but I have no way to verify that. I know this, right before I crashed, I looked at the closing speed of the car to the wall and thought “shit this is fast and is going to hurt”.

The lap belts and the sub belts all mount into the floorpan with big load washers. I have not yet looked at the floorpan, as the car is at the body shop, but I will look.

Ranger is right that a side hit is one of the worst things you can have. You don’t get much restraint, and the HANS does nothing. Without a halo seat (I had a Racetech halo), this would have gotten really ugly. I also had Schroth belts in the car.

#6

There are certa9in parts that I will only buy from BMW, lower control arms and maybe now brake master cyl’s…

I lost my brakes at VIR once, going into turn 1, luckily I had the handbrake in the car but I still went OVER the wall and into the woods that you cannot even see in turn 1. Turns out a caliper broke…the casting was cracked right thru where the piston is…

Al

#7

[quote=“Ranger” post=75609]What was bad about Scott’s crash is the broadside hit. That’s dangerous because there isn’t much of a crush zone to absorb energy and the driver restraint system is not at it’s best in resisting lateral movement of the driver. I don’t know what his impact speed was, but judging from the damage, I’d guess 70mph.

The veterans have seen some pretty bad e30 crashes. A couple that come to mind are Jim Levie, Robert Patton, Robert Chrysler, and me…all at Road Atlanta. To my knowledge, none of us had floor pan deformation at the seat attachment points. All the hits were hard enough to destroy the car.

The harness takes most of the load restraining the driver in an impact, except a rearwards hit. The shoulder straps being anchored to the cage, aren’t going anywhere. The left hip strap goes to cage or rocker which is really tough. The weaker points are prob the right strap and to a lessor extent, the anti-subs.

I’m a total cheapskate, but I’ve learned my lesson and am willing to open the wallet for safety gear. My halo seat saved my bacon in it’s very first race weekend.[/quote]
Just for the record, in my incident the floor under the seat, the home made steel (1/8") base, and the side mount brackets (~1/8" steel) all deformed, though none failed. Additionally the stamped steel pelican hook of the center net straightened out. I had to use polishing compound to remove the net marks from the helmet. Surprisingly, there was no detectible damage to the seat (a Sparco Evo). The seat I immediately retired and after thinking about it the helmet also. My HANS tethers had obvious stretching in the stitching, but it held.

Hindsight is always 20/20, but my philosophy is that critical safety items on a race car (like brakes) should always be new OE (or better) parts. And there is no way that I’d eliminate the e-brake. If you know that it is there and have practiced using it, when Plan A doesn’t work you have Plan B available. You might still hit the wall, but it will be at a much lower velocity.

#8

It is good to re-think or take a second look at our safety gear and systems with our cars. After seeing the video of Rob Lamb’s wreck at Sonoma back in early 2012 http://vimeo.com/37085724 I replaced my non-Halo Momo with a Racetech before the next event. I cannot imagine now racing without a halo seat just like I cannot imagine racing without my HANS.

Glad to hear that you’re OK.

Cheers,
Scott

#9

[quote=“sneville44” post=75614]It is good to re-think or take a second look at our safety gear and systems with our cars. After seeing the video of Rob Lamb’s wreck at Sonoma back in early 2012 http://vimeo.com/37085724 I replaced my non-Halo Momo with a Racetech before the next event. I cannot imagine now racing without a halo seat just like I cannot imagine racing without my HANS.

Glad to hear that you’re OK.

Cheers,
Scott[/quote]
Dang. Bad hit.

I should have known better than to attempt to guesstimate impact speed.

#10

Glad you’re ok. How did you pinpoint the MC as the cause? My MC failed last season, but I never experienced a total or near total loss of braking. First symptom I noticed was a dragging caliper on one side only. At my next event, I had a sinking pedal and noticeable loss of braking power during practice, but the system was able to build pressure and almost get back to normal after additional brake applications. I went on to qualify and race that day without incident. Nevertheless, before my next race, I replaced the MC, and normal operation was restored.

PS, I replaced my MC with a used unit and am thinking now that I should have sprung for a new one.

#11

Regarding the master cylinder: All of the brake lines are still intact, the resevoir is full of fluid, the fluid is fresh, and the pedal still drops to the floor. When you push it, you can see the fluid level in the resevoir rise, and when you let off, it goes back down. Thats a blown seal.

#12

Interesting. I had same symptoms last 2 races of 2013. Couple of close calls in 10a with sinking pedal. New mc replaced last weekend. We found a right front grabbing prepping the car for that last weekend. Don’t understand why but hope it’s fixed.

#13

Sorry to hear this Scott. I hope you’re not too banged up. You are reinforcing our thought to just get a new shell rather than trying to straighten the old. Can’t ever be too careful. I am questioning using our seat out of the wrecked car. It wasn’t a huge hit and obviously no signs of anything damaged.

Anyone care to chime in on how big of a hit you need to retire a seat? We have the left rear bumper shock pointing at the ground and the Right front frame that is attached to that bumper mount is a little twisted and buckled.

Thoughts are appreciated.
Jason