Force = Mass x Acceleration

No Not all Vets, but there's enough of 'em

As applies, those drivers need to get it off the street. A good place to learn for me years ago when driving a modified Sunbeam Tiger -- was club sponsored autocrosses. We held ours on large aircraft parking areas or abandoned taxiways.

Oh my!

Lots of reasons, but mostly just too much HP for whoever was driving.

Why I quit drag racing my 64 and 69 Vettes. Not worth the pain and grief of "losing it". Guess I am getting too old. I do not feel immortal anymore like I did when I was 16.

I know the feeling. I would imagine most of those crash test dummies were pretty young and testosterone and alcohol fuled. I have a base C6 that is a wonderful cruiser and does well through the canyons. Though not as well as a few years ago when I was still inhabited by a bit more of kid.

Mortality is real...............

Not a plan but somehow at my age I'd rather pass on alone in a waded up Corvette than with a wad of tubes stuck in all my orifices in some smelly rest home. Just set the whole mess on fire, scrap up the ashes and scatter them on my final resting place.

Unfortunately we just don't know. If it were me in that waded up Vette some highly trained EMP would probably arrive on the scene in the nick of time and with the jaws extricate my broken body, insert tubes, and haul me off to the "wait to die ward".

Still............ I still, on occasion, like to drive my corvette as fast as I can, that just isn't so fast as it once was and is never fueled with alcohol anymore. Mexican food perhaps.............

Have a club member with a 2011 ZR-1. He is quite wealthy but was smart enough to buy one that was 2 years old at the time.

I can just see this car getting into trouble, romping on it in a turn.

Would the Stability Control prevent these overcorrections and spins?

Vito

...second.

I was forced off the road at speed 2 nights ago by a pair of semis head on, onto a muddy ditch bank and started sliding to my right. Correction didn't work, had to go through the shallow ditch and was able to stay off the fence. There was the cross road just ahead of me and I was on it before I could react much, just able to brake while on the asphalt and stop before I slid on by. Pissed off and covered in mud I got back on the road but had to stop shortly after that to get control of my shaking.

To answer your question if the active handling did anything I didn't know it and I don't remember seeing any lights come on but I do remember the chatter of the ABS. Also can't say the ABS was the AH working or if it was because of my hard braking to stop on the side road, just happened to fast. Most likely it only took 20 seconds for the entire event but much longer for my heart rate to become normal again.

Funny how so much information sticks with us after such adventures. I had a roll over (not in a Vette) a year ago, broke my neck in two places. I can still see and feel those few thrilling seconds. Destroyed two good trucks..............

Glad both you guys are OK. I had a close call in my 69 about 1994. Romped on it on a freeway on ramp and car began to go tail out. Not a skid but as if the rear suspension had shifted. Car went tail end first across the freeway then stopped. All cars on the freeway stopped except one driven by a kid. She hit me at 60 mph on the left rear quarterpanel and spun me around almost 360 deg. I was fine and she was fine and no one was hurt. In the body shop they found that the rear suspension in the center (holding the transverse spring) had only 2 of the 4 bolts. One of the two bolts had broken allowing the assembly to rotate. This then canted the rear wheels to the right, in this case.

I looked at the receipts the previous owner had given me. While at Corvette Mikes, a new rear end was installed. Seems they thought that only two bolts where 4 were needed was good enough. Lucky no one was killed. I determined that car was 'hexed' and sold it a few years later. Those 'old' cars need to be thoroughly checked out before you go traveling at 50+ mph in them. In fact, while I do not think they should be trailer queens, they should not be used for daily driving either. They do not have the safety features that modern cars have and that you may need some day.

Vito

Glad you are OK, Dad!

If you backed across the freeway did you enter from the left? If you backed across from the right your right quarter would be exposed to oncoming traffic.

Those 4 bolts would only retain the spring, if that spring moved it would only affect the up and down of the wheel not the direction of vehicle travel. There is also a locating pin in the center of the spring pad that would have to shear off. The spring would also have to shear the bolts that tie the spring ends to the trailing arms. Even that would not allow the wheel location to affect direction of travel with the radius rods holding it in place. If that spring popped out of it's pad your body would have been sitting on top of your tires. The only bolts that could have done that would have been the one that ties the tailing arm to the frame, then you would have a wildly uncontrollable Corvette.

Take a look at page 8...............

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Thanks for the diagram. I was going from memory. Was the 4 bolts that hold item 10 on. Only 2 were present and one broke allowing the assembly to rotate. Uncontrollable was the word.

Glad you are OK, Dad!

I second that. Had some close ones over the years, but nothing like that. Took quick thinking on Dad's part otherwise it would have been a head-on.

Snip

At my age quick thinking is not what I can rely on, survival mode, turn right, left, right, left, and hit the brakes. More reflex than anything else, that was our video games in the '50s. When it snowed we used to go off the side of the road and see who could slide sideways the furthest and still get it back on the road. If the snow was just right we could run up the cuts through the hills until it couldn't pull any more and then try to get back to the road. Yeah, we had to push each other out once in a while but we learned something and had fun doing it. I still test the road surface when it looks to be slippery, braking, acceleration, steering control until the right seat starts making noise. She's allot of things to me but I wouldn't ride to the mail box (200 ft) with her in the snow, can even scare hell out of me on a sunny day.

One thing I do is hit bridges at a point where I can run straight across them in case they have black ice of anything else that can make it slick. Two weeks ago we went to a wedding after a cold snap and snow the day before. You should not believe how many spinouts there were on the exit side of the bridges.

I try to drive so the other driver gets home alive, that makes my chances to do the same just that much better.

Practice does make perfect...and as a result of such I've lost count of how many accidents I've avoided or steered out of over the years. But you have to know where the edge actually is in order to stay away from it...which is a reason I'd like to go to school with my Z06.

>

Last year I was heading down the 14 to a doctors appointment in heavy rain in my '87 Vette...moving with the flow of traffic and noting that I was on the edge of hydroplaning but still had control of the car. I was in the left lane next to the carpool lane.

Out of the corner of my right eye I saw a driver lose control and fishtail such that his right rear wheel climbed the canyon wall and his car flipped over forward, rolled a few times, and began heading across lanes toward me...all this took place about four car lengths ahead of me. At which point most of the other drivers began hitting their brakes, hydroplaning, and turning the mess in to a real multi-car pileup to the right of, and behind me.

I thought about my own car - that I was on the edge of hydroplaning myself and that hitting the brakes would only make things worse...and that I shouldn't cross the yellow line into the carpool lane even though it was clear for about a half mile in both directions. Then a hubcap started heading for my windshield, and I put my foot a quarter inch deeper into the throttle and very non-aggressively steered into the clear space in the carpool lane and out of danger before I again *eased* off the throttle...behind me in my rear view I could determine the end result of a real pile up. Couldn't count how many.

Found out the next day that the guy that flipped ahead of me died in the wreck.

Snip

At my age quick thinking is not what I can rely on, survival mode, turn right, left, right, left, and hit the brakes. More reflex than anything else, that was our video games in the '50s. When it snowed we used to go off the side of the road and see who could slide sideways the furthest and still get it back on the road. If the snow was just right we could run up the cuts through the hills until it couldn't pull any more and then try to get back to the road. Yeah, we had to push each other out once in a while but we learned something and had fun doing it. I still test the road surface when it looks to be slippery, braking, acceleration, steering control until the right seat starts making noise. She's allot of things to me but I wouldn't ride to the mail box (200 ft) with her in the snow, can even scare hell out of me on a sunny day.

One thing I do is hit bridges at a point where I can run straight across them in case they have black ice of anything else that can make it slick. Two weeks ago we went to a wedding after a cold snap and snow the day before. You should not believe how many spinouts there were on the exit side of the bridges.

I try to drive so the other driver gets home alive, that makes my chances to do the same just that much better.

Black ice was a real problem in the UK when I was stationed there. Lived in Ely which is in the Fens with two lane roads that dropped off about 30 ft into ditches. And the fog -- you could not see the front of your car when it hit. At the time for me it was a 20 mile drive to RAF Mildenhall where I worked. Ely sat on what was an island originally with the cathedral (started in 985 AD) a very prominent landmark.