Hope you guys had fun. I forgot to take more pictures in the parking lot, but here is some before I blasted up to Camano Island. Sorry chris no pictures of you I dropped my camera into the psg floorboards.






This guy kept slowing down and wouldnt let me get along side of him. TBH I dont know what it was. Some old VW? It was named Luci though. Neat car.

 

Well that'll teach me to run without traction control on...



Highlights:
-No one was hurt
-The damage is (so far) entirely cosmetic (time to get the MS front and rear bumpers?)
-Once I was pulled out, I drove the car home

4 RX-8's went into a sharp right hander, 4 RX-8's had their rear end kick out. 1 RX-8 thought since it had turned into a nice day while they were eating lunch, the roads would be dry and turned off DSC. 1 RX-8 will be making a hefty insurance claim.

 

the curse!!

 

^^ That's nasty

 

it all started when he put those tow hooks in at lunch. he was asking for it!

maybe kris should rename this the "Mid-Winter Blunder"

 

Yeah it was pretty lucky. I'm glad it was just cosmetic and you and your girlfriend were okay. The corner really caught us by surprise. And judging by all the tire tracks going in to ditches in both directions many other people before us.

 

PM me and ill give you my number. Help you solve your ticket problem.

 

Wow.... Nick! I'm glad you and your girlfriend weren't hurt!! Where were you in the sequence of cars? At the end?

What's the deal with the tow hooks??!


You're the 2nd BB wrecked 8 in a month that I know personally....

This is what happened to my BF's 8 on the way back from the Rolex Grand-Am races in Daytona last month. We made it within 4 miles (!) of our destination in WV, got caught in an ice storm at 3:30am, after driving 15 hours. A semi blasted by us and kicked up enough turbulence that it caused us to spin and hit a guard-rail head on. As of last Monday, ins co. decided to total it due to hidden undercarriage damage and the tranny was messed up too. We did not get hurt, but it was so painful to see his car in that condition... especially the way Mike babied it.

 

Yah, the picture was taken post putting the tow hooks in for the tow truck (who, btw, didn't use them anyway). Amazingly (considering that picture), I drove away from that.

Sad to see your bf's 8 Linda, he definitely got it worse than I did...

So this was very much my 20hr crash and in a way I was almost expecting it (not that I WANTED to crash, I was hoping it would be something less risky). I got cocky, overconfident and just assumed I'd be able to react correctly with the DSC off and thought nothing of it when I shut it off but the truth of the matter is that with the DSC on I probably would've gone through that fine. I was last in line and couldn't see far enough around the turn as we came into it to see any of the guys ahead of me kick out their rear ends. It was a late apex corner and I got through most of it with no drama but as I neared the exit and started to get back onto the gas my outside wheel hit a patch of wet sand that was running along the middle of the road. All of us hit that patch but as I came around the corner starting to lose it I came out staring at a telephone pole and a panic response kicked in and I over corrected, so when the car caught grip again I went straight into the ditch.

I'm looking at a new hood, new bumpers and potentially some more light body work on the driverside front body panel (front quarter panel?). The whole thing definitely makes me re-evaluate driving like this on normal roads though. The whole reason I had originally wanted to get into autox was so a mistake like this would results in maybe some cone marks. A claim inspector is taking a look at it tomorrow and I got a ticket for too fast for the conditions. I'm tempted to just pay it, unless you've got some magic you can work, Brad?

 

I have something thats close to magic. PM me your cellie and ill get to you after work.

 

I'm very sorry for your respective losses.. Seeing these pics made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.. May both cars come back with nice new upgrades with little or no cost to the owners..

 

Anijo - so i guess this means no autox for you this weekend? I'm really sorry this happened but on the plus side you weren't hurt and you'll probably end up with a fat insurance check good for spending on Mazdaspeed kits and what not. Hopefully the damage was only skin deep so you don't need to do much besides replace the body panels. Good luck with the repairs.

I had one close call with turning the DSC off and a wet patch of pavement so i vowed never to turn it off on the road again. Probably a good rule for everyone to stick to.

 

Point of clarification: only 3 RX-8's experienced any tail slide. The first one through the corner was fine. I was fumbling for the Mic button on my radio headset when Shaun gave the "Your tires are cold" reminder to the cars behind him.

I hope you're still feeling fine (physically) Nick. It was obviously a pretty substantial impact.

 

I second that sentiment, and will be adding a specific mention of keeping all safety devices active to my pre-drive safety talk.

Nick, just chalk it up as a learning experience, and don't let it scare you away. You're now more aware of how cars behave under those circumstances (your car in particular) and have a healthier respect for traction control.

Just a note to everyone else going on group drives, regardless of who the leader is, don't try to play catch up in the corners. Wait 'till you get to a comfortable stretch of road, radio ahead that you need to catch up, and do it in the straights. If the folks you're driving with don't give you the opportunity, find new folks to drive with.

I'll be the last person to pass judgment in a situation like this. I've been there, and made mistakes with much bigger consequences than this.

 

Wow, I am sorry to see that Nick, that car is practically brand new. You can beat the ticket, they have no proof of how fast you were driving :P

Kris is right man, learning experience. Looks like you were doing some opposite lock going into the ditch there.

 

Wow Linda. I didn't know you guys got in an accident. I'm glad you two are okay.

 

Sounds like a good excuse to buy it back. Gut it, 6 point cage and make a 20B toy from it.

 

Yah, definitely a learning experience, and I was up to just under 10,000 miles :P And the ticket is "Too fast for the conditions" and I made the mistake of giving a speed in my statement. At that point, the last thing I cared about was a resulting ticket. So yah, no Auto-x this weekend, I'm looking at roughly 2.5 weeks before the car is back to normal when all is said and done (3-5 days to get the parts, then at least 5 days to get it fixed, followed by another day of giving it to a dealer to check the engine over).

I built 1 of these into my financial buffer so that's covered but it's definitely putting the wheels and tires out another couple months. Probably going to stick to AutoX for the next couple months minimum. I'm going to downgrade the car from a daily driver to a weekends only and lower the estimated mileage for the year to help counterbalance the insurance hike. I take the bus to work most days anyway and hey, maybe this will get me to start biking to work and I'll get some free weight reduction out of the whole deal

 

Sounds like some RPF1s in the works eh?

 

I'm thinking 17x9's

 

Yup. Luckily we weren't going that fast because of the ice/snow - like maybe 30 at the most... The airbags didn't deploy either. We were in shock for a while though. Plus maybe a slight concussion from having our brains bouncing off the insides of our skulls due to the impact with the guard-rail... dunno. I stayed in WV for a couple of extra days because we were so spacey... Thanks Shaun. Check out my photo album for Grand-Am pics!!

 

17??

 

You can get a set of gold 17x9s. That would look pretty ****.

 

 

Ouch man. I was very close to just showing up for this trip and stuff happened which made me not... I'd probably be in the picture right next to you in the ditch.

At least no one was hurt and that's what is really important. Time to roll with the Mazdaspeed front and sides at least.