My Grassroots Motorsports shirt is cursed.

I have SF and my lawyer told me Nationwide was that way ...

I used to have a set of turbine wheels from a CRX that were seriously bad luck. The CRX they came off of had hit a curb, flipped, and totalled just driving normally in the rain. The Civic I got them off of blew its engine while idling in traffic. My car that used them caught on fire when a brand-new OEM fuel line ruptured and sent fuel all over a nice hot header collector.

I like to think that the scrap truck that hauled them off blew a tire on the way to the smelter...

That shirt isn't cursed, it's trying to HELP you!

First of all, that cat was no good----- didn't you see it coming right at you?! It no-doubt had rabies, and your trusty GRM shirt took care of the problem.

Then you are at the track with a Vibe.........Ok, the shirt thinks......there's no way he would actually be racing a Vibe......so he must be training to be a stunt driver! The Vibe couldn't take your skilled "Hooper-like" moves, so the Pontiac flipped.

Clearly the GRM shirt is helping........I mean, just check out how stunning you look standing next to the Vibe.......or is that stunned?

novaderrik wrote:

rustysteel wrote: In reply to irish44j: I was sharing a ride with a friend with his car but he was on holidays so I thought, hey these race tires/rims fit the vibe what's the worst that can happen. I found out.

did you claim that the throttle stuck on it?

Might have been that a piece of cladding was stuck under the pedal....

turboswede wrote:

novaderrik wrote:

rustysteel wrote: In reply to irish44j: I was sharing a ride with a friend with his car but he was on holidays so I thought, hey these race tires/rims fit the vibe what's the worst that can happen. I found out.

did you claim that the throttle stuck on it?

Might have been that a piece of cladding was stuck under the pedal....

Interior by Fisher Price?

Kenny_McCormic wrote:

turboswede wrote:

novaderrik wrote:

rustysteel wrote: In reply to irish44j: I was sharing a ride with a friend with his car but he was on holidays so I thought, hey these race tires/rims fit the vibe what's the worst that can happen. I found out.

did you claim that the throttle stuck on it?

Might have been that a piece of cladding was stuck under the pedal....

Interior by Fisher Price?

well, it is a joint venture between Toyota and GM, so anything is possible. Also having driven a rental "Vibe" shudder I can say that there is some truth to that....

In reply to turboswede:

The Vibe was a decent autocrosser, with the right tires. I just thought a track day would be fun. Unfortunately I was trying to keep with my friend in his 240sx and well I may have over done it. I swear I hit some oil as a friends Fiero was leaking transmission fluid around the track. Lucky for me I didn't give a ride to another friend who is, how should I say, a larger individual. It was bad enough landing on the drivers side but having a 300 pounder crushing you would have been much worse. I'm putting a new GRM shirt on my Christmas list.

How'd the car fare? Doesn't look too damaged! Track insurance?

Seems like you have a good outlook on it though. It'll be a great story! You even have pictures to back it up!

rustysteel wrote: I'm putting a new GRM shirt on my Christmas list.

David S. Wallens wrote: Sure, I'll trade you a fresh, uncursed GRM T-shirt for a high-res photo of the Vibe on its side.

Sounds like you can get a new one for free to me! :)

accordionfolder wrote: How'd the car fare? Doesn't look too damaged! Track insurance? Seems like you have a good outlook on it though. It'll be a great story! You even have pictures to back it up!

No real structural damage but lots of body work. We ended up trading it this summer for an '04 Subaru Forester XT. Since we didn't go through insurance it didn't show up on any car reports. Due to my damn conscience I did inform the used dealer about the damage and how it happened. He still gave us a good trade in value and was amused at the tale. I'm working on a high resolution pic...

In reply to rustysteel:

Here's the article I wrote for our motorsport bulletin. I mention grass as the culprit but I still think there was some oil or more truthfully driver error.

What I learned at the DDT by Glenn Austin

If the DDT was a club (which it kind of is) it would have a list of rules very similar to a movie called Fight Club. The rules for the DDT would be as follows: 1. Don't take the family car (or your only car) to a DDT lapping day. 2. Don't take the family car (or your only car) to a DDT lapping day. 3. If you do take the family car (or your only car) refer to rules 1 and 2. It was a beautiful day as I left for Mosport on the August 1st. I was geared up for the event and had been thinking about it since I dropped off my money to Fab in July. I had packed the car up the previous night. When I arrived at Mosport, Chris was already there prepping his Civic for the lapping sessions. He was showing off some of his upgrades and all the tires he had brought with him. I was hoping to get a ride with Chris later in the day, as I've been around Shannonville in his Subaru and that was an eye opener; imagine what he could do with his race car.

I started taking anything and everything out of the Vibe that wasn't bolted in, to lighten it and reduce the chance of stray objects flying around the car. I put on my race tires and pumped them up. I was pretty nervous about the whole thing. We signed the necessary paper work and placed in two classes, novice and experienced. I was in novice which suited me just fine as I hadn't ever been on the DDT track. We watched as the experienced class took to the track and I was thinking about how much fun it would be to have a dedicated racecar for such an event. As we watched the racers going around the track I couldn't wait to get the Vibe out there and see what it could do.

The time came and the novice group was up and I lined up behind Mark's 240sx, which sounds mean and looks and drives great. I started off slowly trying to get a feel for the track and came up on some slower cars. After being waved by I found myself behind the 240sx again. We played a little bit on the track; I could catch him in the corners but on the straight he would just pull away. We went on like this for awhile and it was fun until the 240sx spun in front of me and I gingerly went around him. No harm done but now I found myself with a clean track. I decided to push a little bit harder and have the back end of the car come around more. I found I could trail brake into the corners and get the car to rotate nicely. I was impressed with the speed I was getting through the corners and even down the straights.

There was one corner, a sweeping bend that I was carrying a lot of speed through. I decided I would push a bit more and see if I could go around the bend faster. This was a mistake. I went too wide into the corner and touched the grass with my rear tires. This sent me into a slide that I thought I caught in time but as I counter steered the Vibe snapped around the other way and sent me backwards into the grass. At that point I decided that I was going to slide off the track and just end up on the grass. I hit the grass at more of an angle than I thought and gently I went over onto the driver's side. I still see the whole thing happening in slow motion and keep running through my head what could I have done differently.

As I climbed out of the passenger window and jumped out of the car I realized that this was going to be a tough sell to my wife. How do you explain that you were having so much fun but you really screwed up the sole family car? Everyone arrived quickly and checked me out asking if I was ok. I thanked everyone who helped out when we had to flip the Vibe back onto it's wheels. If it wasn't for some very experienced drivers I think I would have done a lot more damage to the car when we did put it back on its wheels. Once the car was ready I jumped in through the window, Nascar styles, and the Vibe fired right up. There was lots of smoke from the oil that had leaked over top of the engine but all was good. My driving ended for the day so I decided to help marshall and maybe get a ride in Chris's car. I did get a ride with Chris and what a ride it was. Chris carries so much speed through the corners, it's scary. That Civic really moves and Chris knows how to make it dance on the track, awesome. After that ride I decided I might as well face the music and head home. The Car drove fine all the way home only the sound of creaking windshield made me nervous. When I did get home my brother-in-law was finishing some drywall in our family room and I went in to say hello. He asked how the racing went and I said great until I rolled the Vibe. He didn't believe me but now I had to tell my wife.

He wished me luck and off I went. Again, I went through my story and again, Laura didn't believe me. I told her it was true and to look in the drive. Things got tense for awhile but we had a good talk about it and decided to get it fixed and that I would be working as many hours as I could to get the car repaired. This pretty much takes us to the present. The Vibe is in the shop and should be ready next week. This also means we will have this car forever and that I can forget about my family friendly autocrosser. This also means that a dedicated autocrosser/lapping car is the way to go and in another 5 years I should be able to afford one...maybe.

poopshovel wrote:

fixed

Your track has a lot more rules than the one I race at...

1) Wear a helmet.
2) Refer to rule 1