A while back I found a neat little video clip with a written naritive on the
Motor Trend web page. It' s called "Full Gainer in a Firebird". Similar to
what you expirienced at El Mirage, As the car drifted to the left, he kept
the power on and corrected to the right. He continued to correct to the
right until he realized it wasn't working. At this point the driver let off,
which loaded the front end and the car immediately went hard right, forcing
the car to roll (pretty violently). I haven't driven at the salt yet, and
look forward to it in august. There is one thing I will bring from my years
of drag racing to the salt- It's better to abort the run, and save your car
for another day than press a bad situation hoping it will get better.
Darrell Ferguson
BLACK RADON ENGINEERING
# 939 BBFALT
http://my.cybersoup.com/blackradon
> -----Original Message-----
> From: V4GR@aol.com [SMTP:V4GR@aol.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 1999 6:35 PM
> To: bbutters@dmi.net; kturk@ala.net; land-speed@autox.team.net;
> johnbeck@blueridge.cc.nc.us
> Subject: Re: Spins
>
> I have never spun, but I came close one time in my 32 which was a pretty
> slow
> car. As I was motoring down the El Mirage course I noticed I was
> getting
> closer to the left side line. I steered right but the car still kept
> getting
> closer to the left side line. I continued to apply pressure toward the
> right.
> All I wanted was to make it to the finish line. As I kept moving left I
> realized I was going to run over the lights. They had made it clear that
> this
> was a bad thing. So I lifted all at once, the car jerked around to the
> right
> and than straightened out and went through the lights at 119. You don't
> need
> to be fast to be dumb.
>
>
>
> Harry Hoffman and Charlie Markley were watching the run and
> commented that they did not think I would save it. I neglected to mention
> that it was divine intervention and not me that straightened the car.
>
> The point here is, If the
> car
> is not going where you are steering it, lift slowly. If you can do this
> when
> you can see the finish line you are a better man than I. Rich Fox
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