>just so all the Team.net back seat drivers with 20/20 blindsight don't go
>cross-eyed from boredom :-), there was an incident at the Petersburg Pro
Solo
>on Saturday when a STS Saturn lost a rear wheel while negotiating some
rather
>fast offset gates.
>
I was working the course at the first station and saw this happen. The left
rear broke in the first turn and the wheel was pointing outward but still
hanging on. The driver apparently didn't know it right away since he kept
going pretty much flat out through the left hand offset, then when he had to
turn right again it broke off completely and the car spun. The wheel rolled
away from the course and away from spectators. During the cleanup I took a
close look at the wheel. The axle broke off right at the wheel mounting
flange, which was still securely bolted the wheel. The brake disk broke
into several pieces and the brake pads fell out. Thankfully, there was no
body damage at all (to the car or the driver). Looked to me like a new rear
hub and brake rotor would fix it.
What made it even more of a bummer was that the driver was from
Massachusetts. I figured he could get a new hub and rotor and have it fixed
by Sunday, but I saw the car hauled off on a flatbed on Sunday morning.
Brad Burns
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