Sh*t Your Pants Behind The Wheel?

[*insertusernamehere*]

So I was in a long car ride with my family over the weekend and my mom brought up some questions about driving that I thought would be perfect for a bunch of car guys!

So mah mommah asked us "biggest fear behind the wheel?" and "scariest dream behind the wheel?". A good twist to add since everyone here is so much more seasoned is "biggest fear behind the wheel on track?" and "scariest thing to happen thus far to you behind the wheel?" (on street/track)

OKAY. READY. SET. GO!

[Senor_Taylor]

I feel like this thread will be similar to the "First Oversteer" thread.

Biggest oh-shit moment for me when driving to Charlottesville at night heading east on 64. The exit to go to UVA is REALLY short and sharp. No signs to indicate it either and my headlights suck.

So I'm doing 70, see the lane, signal, and merge over. I'm slowing and I see that the exit is basically a 90 degree turn in about 200 feet. I stand on the brake and my ABS kicks in full power. (The one time that my ABS was actually on) and I enter the turn. I've never taken a turn so fast. I felt like I was going to flip. It was intense.

Seriously, screw that ramp.

[Jake]

Biggest fear behind the wheel on track?
Since I spun off in the rain last October, I get very tense when I go out and it's raining in any capacity. Logically, I know the tires I have now have more tread, and I know what I did wrong to lose it before. But it still gets me a bit antsy.

Scariest thing to happen behind the wheel?
Almost put the Miata into a light-blue Civic head-on on 33W once. Our closing speed would have been in the triple digits, easily, and I doubt I'd be here. That got me to pay more attention and save the hoonery for the track, right there.

[RawrImAMonster]

Scariest thing was going around a sharp turn after I had just switched to my winter setup on the evo. Turns out my winter tires didn't grip nearly as much and the evo understeered much more than I was expecting. You can see if anyone is coming on that road so I wasn't putting anyone in danger, but I would have been unhappy if I had wrinkled my front bumper/hood/drivers side fender on the guard rail.

Having said that, that car handled really predictably while sliding.

[Senor_Taylor]

Our closing speed would have been in the triple digits

So, if two cars hit head on, both going 60 mph, is it the same as hitting a wall at 120?

[SlimKlim]

Our closing speed would have been in the triple digits

So, if two cars hit head on, both going 60 mph, is it the same as hitting a wall at 120?

Scientifically speaking, it's probably not exactly the same, but yeah, you're talking about a 120 mph impact.

[BLINGMW]

So, if two cars hit head on, both going 60 mph, is it the same as hitting a wall at 120?

Nope, IF they're the same weight, then they equally share dissipating the energy and it's like each hit a wall at 60.

[G.Irish]

Biggest Fear
Coming to the end of a straight and not having any brakes on the bike. I had a no brakes incident on the street when my brake lever fell off, and I had another incident with reducing stopping power on track where my right clip on rotated and prevented me from getting full brake pressure.

Biggest Moment
Hitting the deer was number 1, but I didn't have much time to be scared. I saw the deer and a fraction of second later came the impact.

[SlimKlim]

I had a no brakes incident on the street when my brake lever fell off

hock:

That's a Code Brown if I've ever heard one.

[JPolen01]

My friends and I did too many dumb things when we were younger to recount all of them but there is one that stands out.

My best friend's dad had just gotten a new body dodge ram with the hemi (2010?). It was tinted out with straight pipes and that sumbitch was louder than some cars you hear at the track. We used to blast around in it all the time. It topped out at 112mph. Pretty weak. Anyway, one day we are leaving a friend's neighborhood, making a left onto a busy 2 lane road. The truck had brand new tires so we decided to try and see how sticky they actually were. Well wouldn't you know it, the power from the hemi was no match for the tires. We scream out of the neighborhood completely sideways. I'm in the passenger seat looking directly at headlights from an oncoming car. Somehow he straightens it out and we continue on our way. Come to find out the car that almost made contact with us was another friend. It made for a good laugh at the time.

[BLINGMW]

Biggest fear is trying to go fast on a motorcycle. I never got to the point where I really trusted my skills or the machine on track. It was always guaranteed terrifying some small part of the time. Then I got on a 600 one time and was like, angry scared. Then I tried a hare scramble. 100 terrifying, tree-involved, painful and exhausting events connected together with moments of perceived competence. :oops:

Scariest moment behind the wheel was not a real crash (of which I've had a handful), because it's a few seconds max of adrenaline trying to drive my way out, and then it's over before I can be "scared". Or on a bike it's over before I even know something is wrong! :lol:
It would be the time I VERY lightly rear ended this POS Camaro with our POS Accord out at Valley View Mall. She rolled out from a green light, I guess she didn't like me right behind her at like 10 MPH-- I remember seeing her glance in her mirror and then slam on the brakes. I didn't get it stopped quite in time. I started to get out to check it out, but she got out all crackhead crazy, ran over and started banging on my window, banging on the hood GET OUT OF THE CAR ARRRRGHHH, screaming at us, Jess in the passenger's seat is like OH NO YOU DON'T BIATCH and started to open her door. I pulled her back, threw it in reverse... that's when crazy realized her plan was foiled, and I got the hell out of there.
Hit and run, yup, that's me! Heck if I was going to deal with her or let her bite off Jess' ear over a broken license plate frame or claimed injuries. :dunno:

[CaptainHenreh]

When Julie and I got rear ended by a semi truck that was pretty scary.

And the one time I flipped my mom's Olds Achieva. That was rough too.

[BLINGMW]

And the one time I flipped my mom's Olds Achieva. That was rough too.

I've never flipped a car! I bet that WAS fun. :o

[G.Irish]

I had a no brakes incident on the street when my brake lever fell off

hock:

That's a Code Brown if I've ever heard one.

Luckily it was on a long off ramp so I had plenty of time to slow down with the rear brake. It was crazy because I reached for the brake, then futilely pumped my hand in the air a few times, then I looked down and didn't see a lever, then it was like "OH SHIT".

[BLINGMW]

"OH SHIT".

:lol: :lol:

Since I spun off in the rain last October, I get very tense when I go out and it's raining in any capacity. Logically, I know the tires I have now have more tread, and I know what I did wrong to lose it before. But it still gets me a bit antsy.

Yeah, and the worst is when it just starts to dry out, but offline and the grass is still wet...

[Goodspeed]

I think my scariest moment behind the wheel was when I was almost hit by what I believe to be a drunk driver. I was in my old Supra coming back to Hburg from a track weekend at VIR, and I remember it was raining heavily. I was on the highway, in the right lane, when a red Ford Ranger literally came flying off of the highway on-ramp - he was probably going 80mph+ and basically cut the merge section by simply jumping the grass gulley between his lane and the highway, and proceeded to slam onto the road nearly on top of me before swerving all over the place. I saw him in my peripheral vision as he was about to make this jump to occupy the space I was traveling in, and was like "he's not going t---" before slamming on my brakes and swerving out of the way. I very nearly lost control as it wasn't hard to get that car way out of shape, especially in the rain.

He took off once he got straightened out and I ended up chasing him for a few miles (probably a dumb idea given I had to well exceed the speed limit in the rain to catch him). I never called in his plates but I probably should have - I did give him the one-finger salute however. There may be some other MM'ers who saw this as I think we were rolling together but I can't quite remember.

Another puckering moment occured in the Miata, on Beulah Rd in Vienna when I was making my way to the toll road. I came around a downhill left hander at about 40mph only to come upon a deer wildly scrambling to get up the embankment to cross the road in front of me. There was a car coming the other way at the same speed in the other lane, and sure enough the deer sprinted across both of us as we closed the gap between us - neither of us hit it. I slammed on the brakes for a millisecond it seemed, and I'm sure the other driver did too, but we both probably grazed the last micrometers of its hair with our bumpers before carrying on with our drives.

[HAULN-SS]

Hit a bear on 66 going about 75mph, 2am after some metal show at 9:30 club. My buddy in the passenger seat is about passed out, and goes "That's a really big fucking do...." blammo!
Hit so hard that the rubber font end had hairline cracks all over it, and all oft hem had bear hair stuck in it, and I could read my front plate backwards in the paint. Surprisingly no other real damage..I think the bear somehow bounced.

[ScottyB]

biggest fear: getting t-boned. i don't know why i'm hung up on it, maybe its because none of my cars have side airbags and i have a little one now so i think about that stuff...not that its guaranteed to make you survive anyway. odds are if you take a real hard hit in the side you're not walking away. i guess with a front/rear hit at least you feel like you've got a chance. i never drive out into an intersection on a green light without nervously checking both ways first.

scariest moment: my senior year i understeered off of this corner while hooning around in my old maxima in a snowstorm thinking i was the next Colin McRae. slid over the opposite lane and went over the side at about 30mph, through a fence post, and was then immediately rear ended by my roomate who was following behind and went right in my tracks. i was covered with broken glass and it was like 10 degrees out with a foot of snow but despite being in like a tshirt and jeans i never even noticed i was so freaked out. my first car, totalled...utterly retarded decision and i'm still ashamed of it.

[SlimKlim]

Luckily it was on a long off ramp so I had plenty of time to slow down with the rear brake. It was crazy because I reached for the brake, then futilely pumped my hand in the air a few times, then I looked down and didn't see a lever, then it was like "OH SHIT".

Jesus.

I personally haven't ever had a really bad pants-shitting scary moments. I've had dozens of small altercations and made lots of stupid mistakes but luckily none of them ended badly.

There's one memorable story also involving no brakes but it was more frustrating than scary.

When I was working at the shop this woman that was a friend of my boss and in a tough spot financially brought in her old jalopy hyundai that was inches from death's door. I don't remember everything wrong with it, but she couldn't afford the parts to repair it and ended up abandoning it with us. Our lot was really small and the shop was always busy so we needed all the parking spaces had, so after it sat for a week someone asked me to move it and warned me it had no brakes. My boss had bought the house right behind the shop from the family of the little old man who had lived there and passed away the year before, so I figured I'd park it in the driveway behind his old car. I got it up there and turned into the driveway at maybe 7mph. Step on the brake pedal and it goes straight to the floor. Fuck. Pull the e-brake and nothing happens. Fuck. I'm going to have a 5mph accident with a parked Monte Carlo. Luckily it was a stickshift so I forced it into reverse, popped the clutch and let it stall and slid to a stop on the gravel. Threw the keys in the center console and walked away. To this day I have no idea how the woman drove it to the shop without causing a bad accident.

Another particularly memorable incident was when the M3 stepped out on an off camber corner in the rain and I almost killed Jake with a ML500.

Or winding out the FZR-600 to 110mph for the first time and realizing how important a good front shock is on a motorcycle when it comes to slowing down.

Or going into a tank slapper at the top of the hill on the Patriot course at VIR.

Or when a tractor trailer blew a tire a few feet in front of us and I had do to full on panic braking on 81 and dodge the huge pieces.

My biggest fear is getting t-boned or rear ended in the M3. Partly because I'm pretty sure if I got t-boned in it I'd die, because side impact protection was still a fairly foreign concept in 1995. And Partly because I've put so much blood, sweat and tears into that thing that it's not really replaceable. The insurance company wouldn't give me a fraction of what I have in it, and even so, I couldn't ever get my car back.

EDIT: The aforementioned tank-slapper at VIR. I guess it wasn't really a tank slapper but goddamn did I pucker up:

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://youtu.be/J2nrmBdw-gU?t=1m3s">http://youtu.be/J2nrmBdw-gU?t=1m3s</a><!-- m -->
(should start at 1:03)

[Jake]

Another particularly memorable incident was when the M3 stepped out on an off camber corner in the rain and I almost killed Jake with a ML500.

I really appreciated counter-steer and your abilities that day.

When Julie and I got rear ended by a semi truck that was pretty scary.

And the one time I flipped my mom's Olds Achieva. That was rough too.

Never knew about either of those... story time, Rexy.