I was out in my '79 spit today running my Saturday errands in moderate
suburban traffic. I was heading to the cross portion of a "T"
intersection. I had a green arrow to turn left. Wanting to make the
light, I didn't slow down, although I was not carrying what I thought
was excessive speed. As I started into the turn, I accelerated to get
that "railing through the corner" feeling that spitfires are so adept at
delivering. There was a small drainage channel at the corner entrance,
al the way across the road. It wasn't very deep, but it had about 1/2
inch of water in it. As I started around the corner, the rear wheels
stepped out. Nothing too unusual about that, I'd felt that before in
the spit when driving in the wet. But they just kept going. I steered
into the skid and eased off on the power, but it totally got away from
me. It finished the 90 degree turn, then threw in another 180 for good
measure. I didn't hit anything, but ended perfectly aligned with the
other cars, in the lane I wanted to be in, but facing the wrong way.
Using the spit's amazingly small turn radius, I was able to do another
180 in the two traffic lanes heading the direction I wanted to go. I
tipped my hat to all the mouths-agape spectators and continued on .
Less vigorously.
Regards,
Mark Gardner
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