Hey guys, hope everyone is well.

I'm sure most of you have seen the Viper crash video where the guys looses his brakes at full speed at the end of the front stretch (at CMP in Kershaw, SC) and he ends up careening out of control thru turn 1 and goes right into the tire wall at full speed, flipping 3/4 times. The passenger seat instructor then says "turn the ignition off ... turn the ignition off".

Well in a time trial / solo run a couple weeks ago I lost my brakes at full speed at the same place on that track. So I slammed it into 3rd gear (from 5th) and crank the wheel left to get the car into a right hand slide (130mph), ending up cutting off turn 1 and sliding across the track between turns 1 and 2, down into the dirt just beyond them. Needless to say I was pretty happy with the result vs. the Viper one. hehe

Click on the BRAKES LOST AT FULL SPEED link / image in the middle of this page to view the video ...

http://www.carolinaspeedzone.com/tur...ay_071307.html

The pit road crewman said "man you got brown stuff all over your car ... and between your legs too!!!" haha

BTW here is the Viper version ... just found the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQvgJZVLhhU

WOWSA!!!

Craig

 

Congrats on the save.

The cars in the videos look like cartoon cars because the video has been shrunk horizontally.

It looks like whoever encoded the video to wmv took 720 x 480 (MiniDV standard) video and converted it to 680 x 480, making the cars look funny.

(it does make the people all look tall and skinny though)

 

I'm glad you and your car made it out unscathed!

What made the brakes go? That shouldn't "just happen" should it?

 

Thanks. I boiled the (racing) fluid thru turn 14. Normally you get advanced notice thru a few braking zones, then you just lay off and come back into the pits to cool down. But this failure was without warning, very sudden.

I converted to Castrol SRF-1 and the brakes were perfect yesterday. Rest today / up early to hit it again tomorrow.

Craig

 

Quick thinking. Nice save.

 

Craig, nice work, thank the stars, eh?

 

Dude nice save!

How can you tell when the brake fluid has boiled?

 

Nice save, quick thinking.

Years and years ago my old man boiled the brake fluid running his works E30 M3 at the Surfers Paradise round of the Indy Cars in the support race. So they walked up the pit lane to some of the indy garages where the teams were more than happy to give him their spare fluid.

Don't know if that would happen alot of the time today?

 

Brake fade occurs when things overheat, but you still have partial braking and some warning so you don't get caught off guard. You know it's boiled fluid when your pedal goes soft and there's not enough pressure in the system.

Follow up: switched to STAINLESS STEEL brakes lines and (still running) SRF-1 fluid. The brakes have been solid as a rock since. I highly recommend the upgraded lines.

Craig

 

Thanks for the info.

Robert

 

No problem.

Hey you '03 TT guys ... check out can happen when your Power Steering pump locks up ....

Carolina Speed Zone - Motor Sports Enthusiast Forum

This is a RECALL issue by the way. Be sure to get it taken care of or at least find out if it already has been fixed if you bought your car since '04.

P.S. The driver was unharmed thankfully.

Craig