Most Embarrassing thing YOU have done in a race car!

[D.T. Benner]

OK this is a chance for everyone to share with us that MOST Embarrasing/Dumb or Stupid thing you have ever done in a race car! Like-Poop in your suit? Show up on pre grid with your car locked in two gears after forgetting to move the shift forks after a gear change? Fall asleep and miss a session? Have different numbers on one side than the other? Now "I" have never done ANY of these things but i have a few of my own to share. Anyone want to go first? [img]redface.gif[/img]

[John Green]

Now I didn't do this but a very good freind who raced S2000 back in the 80's got so busy loading the trailer with all the required things like grill, golf cart, beer, cooler etc.... they forgot to put the racecar on the trailer and had to go back for it.

[formulasuper]

While driving a friends dirt track modified for the first time in a practice heat I found out I hadn't put the steering wheel completely on all the way. Stayed on until the checker at which time I must have pull back on it while braking for the track exit. Not a good feeling to be going about 80 mph on rough clay while holding the wheel in your lap. Went sideways in both directions before getting it stopped. Luckily everyone missed me on both sides. The track worker at the exit was giving me a real bad look until I held up the loose steering wheel. Found out it is impossible to put one back on until stopped. [img]redface.gif[/img]

[HazelNut]

i forgot to gas up before the 1st regional at NHIS a few weeks back and realized it as the grid workers gave the 3 minute warning. Ran out of gas 3 laps before the checkers came out.

[RussMcB]

Very early in my racing career: I ran off the track at Lime Rock in the esses after the checkered flag while I was looking to the right towards the spectator hill and waving to the crowd. I'm still very embarassed about that. Nowadays, I do almost all of my waving to corner workers while looking forward.

If Mark H. gets into this thread, they may need to upgrade the F2000.com server to hold all of the extra content.

[D.T. Benner]

OK mine is tame but it was Embarrassing mostly because I was new to club racing [in this country]. My first race was at Sears Point in 1986-in a 1980 Tiga 1600. Those cars had wide side pods that flaired out at the bottom. When i fueled the car i always placed a drain pan under the car to catch any overflow.I Dropped the car down off the jack,got suited up and belted in and headed off to pre-grid. I had ear plugs and couldn't hear much. I wondered why EVERYONE was staring at me[the NEW guy!] as i drove thru the pits? Finaly someone stopped me and i felt the back of my car lifted by a quick jack! I was presented with one very flat and well ground off drain pan!! Later i could see a trail of galvanizing that ran from my pit to the place i was stopped. I was told the noise and sparks were quite a show!

[Curtis Boggs]

I've told this one before, but it deserves to be told again.

My first road race car, .. all excited I brought it home.
All my neighbors came over to see, ... .. so I decided I was going to take
a ride around the neighborhood.

Only problem, .. new roads and they weren't done paving, .. so the man hole
cover stuck up enough to unload the front of the car, .. sent me strait
into a curb and took out one of the loudly laughing neighbor's mail box.

Bent the front corner, broke a wheel, .. and got a big round of applause from my
neighbors.

Curtis

[Mark C. Ritter]

It was actually done in a shifter kart at the Atlanta Stadium parking lot, SCCA solo 2. First time out in the kart I spun in a 180 corner. I took out a few cones. I got the clutch in so I didn't stall it, but once I stopped and put it back into first it would not move. It would rev and shift fine but no forward motion. I thought I had broken the chain until I looked back and saw both rear wheels off the ground! Turns out I was sitting on top of a cone and it raised the kart just enough to unload the rear tires. Had to get out, lift up the kart and remove the cone. Still set a good time even with all that! Got a BIG round of applause from that one.

[Mark H]

OK RUSS, But where do I start?
Borrowed friends hobby car, was leading when gas stuck WFO and tore down wall, oh and I forgot to tell him I borrowed it?
Was hulling out Nova for roll cage, cought grass on fire, diden't have water at this shop so we put it out with " USED BEER".
Was loading up late one night at the top of a big hill in front of our old house and after the car got on the trailer it started rolling backwards?
Trailer came off ball and rolled into the house.BUT we did race the next day and I think finished 3rd. [img]redface.gif[/img]
2nd race ever put fix-a-flat race tire, you should have seen the tire guys face when I got a new one the next week. [img]redface.gif[/img]
Loaded car on new trailer, it was to narrow between fenders, knocked out sidewalls on two front tires ,and yes they were stickers, never saw the track.
My first race after drivers school,the whole race. [img]redface.gif[/img]
Then there was that time at Lowes when the car was cutting out down the back strech? After much carb. and float adjusting we decided to remove the sock from the air intake snorkel HMM. [img]redface.gif[/img]
What about blowing all 4 tires at the same time during a race? But hey that one was not my fault! [img]redface.gif[/img]
Or fliping end over end 3 times and having no wheels left on the car to load it up?
But I did get to meet Scott Blomquist on that nite when he came down to see what I did to the car. He said it was the highest he ever saw a car flip.
After that my nick name became High Roller. [img]redface.gif[/img]

Last one was not my deal eather,
I collect autographs on dollar bills, I gave Boris Said a dollar to sign and he put it in his pocket? I guess he thought he was a baseball player and I was paying for an autograph?
Don't forget racing is FUN!!!
See yall at the track!

[size="1"][ August 02, 2004, 11:59 AM: Message edited by: Mark H ][/size]

[Steve Demeter]

In my case, every time I get in the car it is a new height in embaressment.

[formulasuper]

I gave Boris Said a dollar to sign and he put it in his pocket

Way to go Boris!

[Jim Garry]

My first drivers school at Summit Point. After adjusting the clutch on my FV, I jumped into the car and went out for a session. After 10 minutes I noticed that no one wanted to stay directly behind me, even if they couldn't pass.

After the session, another student walked up to me and took the vise grips off the clutch adjustment. He said he was laughing hysterically; every time I'd shift, he's watch the vise grips move around.

[rickjohnson356]

2nd driver school for new 'hot-shot driver' (weren't we all at first?) in Beach FV (1969): driving on pace lap of 5-lap practice race when corner workers started waving at me, I waved back... "Thanks Workers!"... VERY shortly thereafter I saw my RR wheel & tire continue down the road while I dragged a$$!! We all had a good laugh and I still got credit for the school!!

[size="1"][ August 02, 2004, 12:58 PM: Message edited by: rickjohnson356 ][/size]

[jattus]

The 1st time out in my "new" 96 I spun 3 times during the race. I started outside of row 1 and finished pretty close to last place. My last spin came within a 1/2 mile from the finish line- even saw the checkered waving- Scott went buy laughing at me and waving [img]redface.gif[/img]

After the race I pulled into impound and the SOM came over "To make sure I was OK"-- More like checked my breath to make sure I wasn't drinking-NO JOKE! He was 3 inches from my face- Glad I could be the class clown- Mark and the rest of team SuperTech saw what was going on and I still get hazed to this day about that one

[EYERACE]

do you mean alone in the car?.....'cuz i'm sure there a some really really good stories about moments in the car...and you're not the only one in the car! .....ok, i know we're talking single seaters so maybe this includes ON the car....Hmmmmmmm.....keep it clean guys. Let me volunteer that the MG was better than the Crossle or the VD.

[racerjon1]

Originally posted by jattus:
The 1st time out in my "new" 96 I spun 3 times during the race.

That would be why we call him Captain Spin [img]smile.gif[/img]

Jon K

[racerjon1]

Now that i have picked on him i guess i better fess up though.

I assume this is "most embarrassing thing besides crashing" right? Cause i have one of those that was pretty bad.

SIC 1999, driving in the Formula Ford and I come up on some V's.. i smell antifreeze and think "hmm one of them is going to have a problem"

Needless to say.. the smell wasn't coming from the V's.

Jon K
www.seat-time.com

[TimW]

on (my only ever) victory lap found the stick of the flag jammed between my thigh, the cockpit tube & the steering wheel, couldn't make a corner at ~30mph putting 2 wheels off until I could move the flag stick...

[Bill Maisey]

Really DUMB and I won't reveal who it was. At the RunOffs a few years ago, they had a last minute (and pointless) "drivers meeting" on the grid. Driver forgot to rebuckle his helmet. When the car got up to speed, the helmet lifted and the lower part covered his eyes. He tired holding it down, but with shifting and steering, he was short an available hand. After a couple of very uncomfortable laps, he discovered he could bite down on the microphone in the helmet and hold it mostly in place. He drove the race that way. There wasn't any radio communications that day.

[D.T. Benner]

Hey I watched a guy switch from slicks to rains on pregrid[on the 5 board] Great work by his crew until someone pointed out to them that the bigger tires go on the BACK of the car?

[JHaydon]

Originally posted by D.T. Benner:
Hey I watched a guy switch from slicks to rains on pregrid[on the 5 board]

Oh, that reminds me of my second win ever... I had qualified 2nd (in the dry), and during lunch it rained HARD. The rain stopped during the session before our race, but the track was SOAKED (standing water), and it was threatening to rain more.

The driver on the pole did that trick where you put on two rain tires and two dry tires, so you can decide at the last minute and then only have to change two tires. Except he forgot the "torque the lug nuts" part. We pulled onto the track, and I saw his car jump like it hit a major pothole, then it kind of swayed back and forth before the left rear wheel came off. (This was in a FV, so there was nothing centering the wheel on the drum once the lugs were gone.)

I was on slicks (I didn't own rain tires), but I got two laps in before he even tracked down another set of lug nuts. It started raining again with about 5 laps to go, but neither of us spun.

My own most embarrassing moment (in a car) was probably when I hit my instructor's car with a borrowed car in driver's school. With my instructor riding shotgun. (This was in a sedan.)
Yeah, we were doing the nose-to-tail "conga line" laps, and someone managed to spin (a severe storm the night before left a lot of standing water on the track). My instructor said, "Keep going, they won't stop." He was wrong. Fortunately, we were only going about 15 mph. And the guy driving my instructor's car completely demolished it later in the day, so I didn't look quite so bad by comparison.

And someone else I know rolled a borrowed car in driver's school, then tried to roll it back onto its wheels and keep the corner workers from calling it in, so the owner wouldn't know...

[EYERACE]

moroso is a swamp with some paving in selected places, so after it rains the runoff areas are deceptive grassy ponds. i was scrubbing the tires very hard on the pace lap, to the point that the back would just break loose and then oversteer to catch it and then do it again to the other side....well of course i looped it on the backstretch, slid off into inside runoff area halfway down the straight and sunk in a couple of inches below sea level slightly backwards - since the race was just coming to the green and i was in a safe place, i was left there... and not only did i suffer a wet rear in my driver's suit that didn't dry all day but the entire race i was able to watch the oncoming cars and vice versa.....needless to say, the grid did wave at me on the cool down lap.....maybe they should make helmets that have a dunce cap just for those moments - new aero package

[JHaydon]

Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me. I forgot, I went off track on the pace lap too. I was lucky that the grass was dry, and even luckier that I didn't loop it, but of course I lost all the heat in my tires.

Better than the other guy I know who hit a tree on the cool-off lap. He's now known as "Woody."

[FC63F]

About five years ago at Waterford Hills, won the co-driver event and was taking the victory lap with the checker flag and my left hand started to tire so I wedged the flag pole in the corner of the dash and about 20 seconds later the car started to stall, stumble and stop about half way around. Didn't realize that I had hit the electical shut off. A corner worker came up and asked what the problem was and I told him that I was out of gas - He paused and then reached in the car and corrected the electrical shut off switch position. I could not get the engine to restart and so I had to be towed in on my victory lap. Not my finest moment - and certainly embarrasing but not fatal.

[John Robinson]

It wasnt really embarassing at the time but funny now. I was racing karts at Savannah, when just before the race decided to check weight. WEll I was going to be 5# lite, didnt have time to bolt it to the seat correctly, so placed it in the drivers suit pants pocket. Everything was fine until we hit T1 at speed, the dive wieght slide from hte side of the pocket to my crotch, slid it back overr after turn 2 only to have it slid back over at T4. After fighting it for several laps and realizing that the more times it hit the worse they (the fellas) hurt I left it wedged?? in place until the end. But had a very hard time standing erect after getting out of the kart and my voice was just a slight bit higher for a day or 2...


or maybe even putting the gears in reverse order (mk9) for the 3rd time. But you know, if you concentrate it isnt much different, just have to remember the pattern is backwards.

John

[Todd TCE]

Let my wife drive it.
She swore she could not get it in gear at the top of the run. Coasted down. I put it in and on the trailer...girls don't like all that grinding you know.

[Tim Reed]

First time I ever put my car on scales to balance the corner weights was quite the adventure. It started on Friday morning of a Mid Ohio weekend. Scale platform arrived at the airport Friday afternoon for pickup. Got the pads home and spent the good part of the afternoon and early evening setting them up and leveling them out in my garage. Realized after I had set them up that the 2 inch rise in the garage floor from the driveway was not going to make it easy to roll the car on the the scales. After some creative positioning of 2x4's didn't work, took the scales appart, rolled the car in the garage, jacked up the car and slide the scales underneath and re-assembled them. It was probably about 8:00 p.m. or so by now. Cars on the track at Mid Ohio beginning at 8:00 a.m. and I'm still in Cincinnati, 150 miles away from Mid Ohio.

So, get the car on the scales and check the corner weights. Hmmm... the rear sure does weigh a LOT more than the front. It's really going to be a challange to get them to balance, FRONT TO REAR!! Yes, we spent the next 2 to 3 hours trying to get the car to balance front to rear. About 11:00 p.m., made a desparation call to the person I bought the car from and they kindly explained that I only needed to balance the weight accross the axles, left to right, not front to rear... Duh!!!

The adventure of that weekend was only beginning, but I'll save that story for some other time...

TDR

[andyllc]

Todd-
I dont know about you but I always thought girls liked grinding

I spun on the pace lap in two kart races before. Also, stalling on the start of the Montreal GP in 2001. I sort of redeemed myself by going then from 30th to 7th in 11 laps but then I had a mechanical failure and that was the end of that.

[D.T. Benner]

WOW! This even better than i thought it would be. People are not shy about this stuff when it's not face to face! Good friend of mine got 2nd. and 3rd. gears in the wrong place and his car sounded and acted funny during qualifying till he figured out the "NEW" shift pattern! He actualy turned laps almost as fast as he could with the gears in the correct order.

[Mark H]

Shoooot D.T. Face to face is even better.
Next time your down this way youll have to stop by ( you know kick your shoes off set a spell) and Ill tell you some real good ones! [img]redface.gif[/img]
Hey ask Formulasuper about the time he fliped at Talladaga and was barried up to the roll hoop in mud upside down.

[EYERACE]

....honest....the fish was THIS BIG....actually i'll bet every story here is true

[TimW]

The really funny thing about these stories is that the pro teams have just as many...

I worked with a gearbox guy who (tells the story that he) swapped gears in an IMSA car; all three drivers ran the whole race adapting to the 'shift pattern.'

I also worked with a driver who got caught with both hands still on his drink bottle when the car came off the jacks and was being waved out from a pit stop. Went to the back of the train, but it was one of those days we were hooked up and had the field covered so no harm, no foul. Thereafter the engineer had an item on the communication sheet to not let that happen again.

[D.T. Benner]

Mark I would love to meet you and swap stoties but as a senior citizen on a mostly fixed income[most of which goes for racing] I don't get to far from home. Heck I plan on saving some money for a trip to Portland Int. Raceway next year-Great people and a fun track!-and thats only 650 miles away.

[Thomas Copeland]

Jeez Darrell, true confession time? Most embarrassing? How about nearly taking out half the field on the pace lap at the double regional in June? I had qualified way back (turns out the cam was 14 degrees off). I was adjusting my mirrors on the pace lap when I came out of turn 5 and gave the car a little goose to catch up to the field when I discovered they had all bunched up in turn 6. I was going way, way, too fast....I had to slammed on the brakes hard and did a 360 right under the bridge. Luckily everybody up front was blissfully unaware...but man that was extremely close!! Travis told me later the flaggers in turn 5 were yelling for someone to get that crazy fool in car 16 under control!

[carnut169]

Mine would have to be missing the double black at CMP and running around the track while the majority of the field got off. At least 3 other cars followed me....

[Bob Wright]

This is a good thread so people can learn not to do some of the dang, fool things again..

Senario: Lime Rock, new used car ('95 VD) test day. I bought the car, disassembled and rebuilt it and was driving it for the first time. Third lap and the first at speed, came down the front straight into the braking zone and...

NO BRAKES! not a soft pedal, but NO BRAKE PEDAL at all. It fell off and was lying on the belly pan. I proceeded down the escape road at about a buck twenty and then past the escape road and then past a lot of trees...found a pile of concrete pieces where they thought no one could possibly get to them and flipped the car upside down over the top of the pile. The car embedded itself in the ground on the roll bar, still running.

First thing I heard on the radio after everything stopped was a softly spoken question..."so, are you all right?" Response; "yes... is anybody coming for me?" "Yep, but they have to find you first."

Moral of the story...some bolt checks are more important than others.

[D.T. Benner]

I made a nice steel adapter/bracket for the rear wing support on the Zetec that lets us use one of those nice Alum. Harbor freight Nascar jacks.While putting the car up on stands after a race my crew ask "Where is the jack adapter?" AH--did anyone remove it before we went out? Oh-Oh! Went to grid and ask is anyone had reported a steel "Wing support" seen on course? I wanted it to sound like it was part of the car not something that should have been REMOVED before the car went out Just in case it would up someplace it should not be. Lucky for me the crash crew found it in a sand trp at the end of the day and returned it to me. It NOW has a 3ft. REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT streamer attached to it!

[BrooksHall]

For me it would be spinning out of a sure 2nd place on the last lap (Surferdude will appriciate this). I had really great battle with Greg Minium at BRP last season and with about 4 laps to go I got around him and built a comfortable lead. Last lap turn one I just brain fadded and put it in the dirt! I got it running just in time to see Greg go by and get second.

[Mike Ahrens]

I've been away from my computer or I'd have jumped in sooner.

First one was at a solo 1 type event at Nelson in my slightly race preapre TR-6. It was a little wet, and before the repaving there was a spot at the exit of the carousel that was notoriously slippery when wet. Well I knew it would be slippery there, but nobody told my right foot. So, ON THE PARADE LAP, I spun 180 and proceeded to slide backwards through the grass. With my wife in the passenger seat. I think she was even pregnant.

Second one was on my first race start in my FC. I had been running IT, which is alomst like driving a normal car. But on my first formula car start, well, that was sooo cool!! All those formula cars up close! What a great sound! What a great view! I was so caught up in the spectacle, I almost forgot I was driving. When the guy outside and in front started to turn in for turn one, I almost t-boned him. Went wiggling through turn one, then decided to pay attention.

[racer27]

I went to reset the tell-tale on the tach by pushing the little button behind it. It has alwasy been a tight fit, but for this race we changed the tach orientation to give the roll-bar mounted Camera a better view. In the process of trying to depress the button with my finger, I got finger stuck. It required pulling the front body work to take it out.