Having witnessed the whole thing with my own eyes here is my take:
The course was fast (I was in 3rd gear twice, probably in the 90-95 mph
range) that is true.
BUT..... the part where the Z28 driver went off course into the grass
was a place where a
Camaro would reach about 60 mph in that area. It was a tight chicane (an
"in and out " maneuver).
It seemed to me that the car started to spin on the asphalt road then
the driver did not lift but kept in
the throttle and shot across the road to the grass area. Once hitting
the grass area the car rotated so that
the ass end was leading to the ditch and then flipped over, but landing
right side up.
So, in my opinion, the two things that cause the incident were:
1. Course design was too fast for the maneuver (ie, go fast and then
make some tight ass kink to "slow" cars down)
2. Driver not GIVING IT UP.
the actual speed of the car when it went off into the grass was probably
only about 30-40 mph, the rollover was very
slow indeed as I remember seeing the underside of the car as it rolled
over.
I was surprised that the car was still drivable.
Alex Tziortzis
1998 Z28 1LE
Fstock
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Alex Tziortzis
Senior Engineer
Wireless Access Technology Research
Motorola Labs
alextz@comm.mot.com
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