Bryan,

Very sorry to see your pics. I think I was one of your lead - follow instructors at VIR. I was driving Tom Antonelli's Comp Coupe. And met most of you all at the track or the lodge. I was grateful that it only rained the first Friday morning at VIR for this reason. Surely would have had many offs and accidents then. I can tell you that in addition to the miles your tires had on them that after the amount of time on the skid pad and then the track at VIR that the tires ' harden' some. Race tires and even aggressive compound street-track tires work on heat cycles. They will only give you the same level of grip again after achieving high temps and pressures. In 50-60 degree rain water and cold ambient temps this was working against you as well.
I took delivery of my GenV GTS after the weekend (it was the pace car) and coming home to Cincinnati hit rain. I could not believe how skidish the car was. Hope your repairs go well and you are back on the road soon.

Sincerely,
Doug Nash


Quote Originally Posted by Bryan Savage View Post
On the road from Williamsport to go watch the SportsCar races at Watkins Glen.

Of course I had to take the Viper. Gots to represent, you know?

Only it's going to rain the whole weekend. And it's raining now. And it's raining pretty hard.

Corsas have 9,800 miles, one track day at Pocono, and Viper Days 2.0 at VIR on them.

ESC set to rain mode.

Driving close to the speed limit in a 65mph zone.

US 15 is fairly recently been repaved. No time to wear in wet and dry lines.

Racetrack-smooth asphalt turned to wet glass. No issues with wandering for the first 50 miles of the trip.

Cruise control on, right lane, and for seemingly no reason, the rear end decides to try and pass the front, swinging out to the right.

Apply correction, and the whole car begins to drift, so when the rear comes back around, I'm in the left lane, and the LR finds some grip in the rumbles, sending the front the other way.

Apply some correction the opposite way, but it's gone. Headed towards the edge of the mountain, but luckily there's a guard rail there.

I try to stop in time letting the ABS do what it can. Car continues to rotate clockwise.

Another five or ten feet of shoulder and I would have made it, but nope.

Left front smacks the rail at 15ish mph and spins the car around, coming to a rest facing the wrong way.



Car still ran fine. No cooling system compromise. No steering or brake issues either, so hobbled the car to the next exit to call insurance and a tow. Car felt really nervous on the way there, but that could have been me.



"Looks" like cosmetic and body panel damage. I didn't want to try to mess with anything. Filed a claim and had plenty of witnesses. I'll be contacted by an adjuster to assess the car, so until then, it's home in the garage. Cost $484.00 for the tow home.

The list of "should've"s for this incident is a long one, and I'll have a long time to mull over them all, so I won't bother listing them. None of them help me now. I just feel bad and stupid for this. I like to think I did all I could have in this situation, but here we are. Ultimately, it's just a car. I'm not injured. Nobody else was injured. The airbags didn't go off, so hopefully the damage is repairable without totalling the car.

If you see anyone riding a bicycle to Watkins Glen tomorrow, it's probably me.

Meanwhile, here's a few other photos.

























I'll update this thread as repairs or whatever transpire.