The Jensenator had a rough day.

Tail of the Dragon Hillclimb, 6/23/13 A.M. My co driver had a Code Brown moment.

He's fine but the car was pranged enough that neither of us was comfortable driving it until the front suspension was thoroughly gone through.

Ouch. Good thing he is ok. Hope that cars turns out just as well.

Yuck, sorry man. At least we're looking at pictures of it crashing and not pictures of an ambulance and stretchers.

Yikes! Well, at least the shiny side stayed UP, although it was looking iffy during the first go...

Any crash you can walk away from is a good crash.

Sorry about your car.

Yikes that could have been waaay worse. Glad everybody is ok

I worked the course the event in the fall and I love that race. I wish I could have been up there for this one too.

That's a good reminder that I should perhaps invest in some brown pants before my first hillclimb, just to attempt to maintain the illusion of calm.

Seriously, glad nobody was hurt, and I hope the Jensenator didn't sustain too much damage.

I'm glad he's OK. He kept apologizing for bending the car and having it come in on a rollback. I finally had to tell him look, I'd a damn sight rather drag the car off a rollback than follow the EMS to the local hospital. Poor bastard had a rough weekend; he was co driving my car because the Alfa Romeo motor in his Spitfire (long story) lost oil pressure and developed a nasty rattle on day 1.

I spent today going through the suspension, it's not as bad as I initially thought. The left front lower control arm was bent, some serious hammer time got it straight again and I welded in some reinforcements on both sides. The QA1 shocks have plastic (!) bearings in the shock eyes, the right side bottomed so hard it squashed the plastic bearings out. It actually blew the snap rings out of their grooves!

The left front rim was bent, the two left side tires are trash and the fender was bent in pretty good. I wailed on it with some body hammers, it's about ready to throw some cheap paint on it and call it good.

Oh, and I discovered that somewhere along the line he BENT THE STEERING WHEEL. It's easily bent back into true but man he musta taken a hard knock. I did notice that 1) he left his neck collar behind when he went to the start and 2) he didn't turn the video camera on. That would have been some epic footage.

I will restate my question from this morning. "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING????"

That looks to be a pretty wild ride and a pretty hard hit. Glad everything is coming back together.

If I recall I live pretty close to you. PM me if you want/need a hand. I ain't all that smart & can't lift really heavy stuff, but I do know how do what I'm told and know how to tell a metric screwdriver from a standard one...

Curmudgeon wrote: Oh, and I discovered that somewhere along the line he BENT THE STEERING WHEEL. It's easily bent back into true but man he musta taken a hard knock. I did notice that 1) he left his neck collar behind when he went to the start and 2) he didn't turn the video camera on. That would have been some epic footage.

In one of the pics you can really see his head against the wheel. Furthers my plan to get a HANS set-up when I can finally build a HC car.

Ian F wrote:

Curmudgeon wrote: Oh, and I discovered that somewhere along the line he BENT THE STEERING WHEEL. It's easily bent back into true but man he musta taken a hard knock. I did notice that 1) he left his neck collar behind when he went to the start and 2) he didn't turn the video camera on. That would have been some epic footage.

In one of the pics you can really see his head against the wheel. Furthers my plan to get a HANS set-up when I can finally build a HC car.

Bingo. He bent that wheel with his forehead. Yikes.

Eesh, Good thing he was wearing a full face helmet, but yeah--a HANS would have helped him more.

Sorry your car got wrecked.

I'm curious, 5 or six point harness right? It's amazing how far his head moved. Makes me want a hans setup pretty badly.

damn.... pics no longer there

I don’t know if it’s the server location being blocked or a bandwidth issue, but I can’t view the .gif at work. Any still shots? and a description of what went wrong where?

Glad he's OK and you are taking it very very well.

I can't see it either.

i can haz pitcher?

wbjones wrote: damn.... pics no longer there

yea ... .gif is back

and yeah the head moves A LOT .. I've just bought a NecksGen ... I'll drill/get the helmet drilled before the next track day

I sorta wondered about the pics being available, they are copyrighted. I'm definitely ordering a hi res set plus any others he has of my runs. I have some in car video which I need to burn to DVD and I'll upload a few soon. EDIT: It's back, must have been a server issue.

The harness is a 5 point Race Quip. I'm thinking he forgot to pull the shoulder harness down tight enough and I know for a fact he left his neck collar behind.

Holy doodoo, now the pics are up he is one very lucky guy. He needs to run out and buy a lotto ticket with that luck so he can fully reimbuse you for your car and get his Spitaromao fixored

Code brown indeed

It looks like was just trying to take a faster line by carving the berm.

Sorry about your car, hopefully it only need minimal/easy repairs.

Did they find the seat cushion?

Stuff happens. He's okay and that is what matters.

Toyman01 wrote: I will restate my question from this morning. "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING????" That looks to be a pretty wild ride and a pretty hard hit. Glad everything is coming back together.

Ya know, I am truly an idiot. (I know, duh. ) He had never driven my car before. Guess he wasn't prepared for all that rotary POWAH.