Sad to see my first race car go out this way. Driving home it felt like I lost a piece of me. Didn't realize the connection I had to the car and how sad I would be to see it go. Especially after the changes I made to the car on Friday (thanks Mitch and Mike) made the car the best ever! She definitely went out on top taking the fast lap in R1. I was very excited about the car and being able to trash talk the 55 into oblivion. So guess I'll make family plans for Labor Day instead of Road Atlanta.
But of course the main thing is it appears both drivers are going to be okay. I'm calling my chiropractor and going to see his deep tissue massage specialist. Still the main thing that is sore is my tailbone. I feel lucky to feel as good as I do after the impact but I was lucky enough to keep going so it wasn't as hard of a hit as is possible.
Safety-don't skimp on the safety in these cars or any car that is on track and driven hard. The equipment did it's job but after my excursions at Hallett I was already thinking about upgrading my seat. I'll send off my HANS, cut up my new belts, and replace my helmet since I believe it hit the rollbar padding based on my sore forehead. My annual this year discussed the mounting of my extinguisher. Well sitting on grid watching the barn burn I checked my fire system handle as it's near the window net. When I came to a stop I shut off the kill switch and watched for smoke as I had some steam coming out. Good thing there wasn't any smoke because my fire bottle was dislodged from it's mount and wouldn't have done anything. Check your system and see if it would hold up in a impact from any direction. I also never liked my battery hold down but it stayed in place-another item that has had a lenghty thread with never really coming up with a great solution.
Car-got it in the garage. Wife took the kids to my parents so I had time to get it on stands, inspect, rip the hood up but unable to get the radiator out. Some accessories are broke, lots of bent metal, windshield busted getting the hood up, oil/power steering coolers are trash along with the lines, hoses, power steering pulley, idler pulley, intake etc. Don't see any cracks on the engine, trans, driveline. I can tell everything shifted as the corner of the shifter housing hit the hole in the floorpan and tore an inch tear in the floorpan. I just want to get the parts off the front of the motor so I can see if it will still run and if the engine is okay. Get the hood totally off so it can be totally covered up since it sits next to where my wife parks.
I'll borrow a page from Pranav's playbook and see if anyone is interested in a teardown party at some point in the future? I figure I'll take some time off to reassess any future racing plans.
Thanks again to all the people who lent a hand getting it able to load and the support that everyone gave me.
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