20CiviC02Si
New Member
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2012
- Messages
- 72
So this all starts out with my journey out to Colorado Springs, CO to finally witness the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb aka "Race to the Coulds". I had been there the year before with my girlfriend, however she had to work the day of the race. Now with my girlfriend serving in the Peace Corp out in Albania, i was free to do whatever! My buddy Cody Loveland and his girlfriend had been building an NSX to compete in the event the whole year before, so i decided why not go spectate. Well i went from spectator to crew member the second i set foot in Colorado Springs.
I had been on the road for 17 hours finally arriving in town, finally found myself a hotel to crash at. When i was about to finally set my head down for some much need sleep, i got a call from Cody. He needed help changing out the secondary fuel pump on the car because he was experiencing fuel starvation mid corner. Let me tell you that Sunoco Q16 race fuel is a potent mixture.... Spent most of the night hanging out, swapping the pump didn't take long. Finally got back to the hotel around 3am, i had been up for over 40 hours.
The morning after the fuel pump was replaced. The car went out for the morning practice session. I was supposed to have made it out, but overslept.
Turns out during the session Cody and Tabitha had a pretty epic Ooops moment...... at Engineers corner. Many many big time names have done the same at this corner.
Pikes Peak Crash - YouTube
Pic taken by Joel Yust on the mountain. The first two, he took is when he almost got ran over by the car! Snapped a shot incidentally while he was trying to jump out of the way.
Cody was fine, Tabitha was injured. When the car finally came down on 4 wheels, there was a boulder under her seat that pushed the floor pan up approximately 8". She was literally put between a rock and a hard place.... The motion compressed her spine and she's been in serious pain ever since. But she's a real Trooper! She messaged, "Make sure to bring my gear in the morning."
The car suffered severe damage to the aero. It took 3 pickups to bring the parts that came off the car down to the pits. The chassis itself was in pretty decent shape, nothing really damaged minus the floor pan. Radiators were leaking as well as some electrical getting shaken up and killing the engine.
I showed up to our headquarters when i saw they had gotten back. Then i saw the carnage myself.... I knew i was in for a long night.
Here's what i saw when i arrived....
So the boys and i got to work repairing the car. Had only 14 hours to have the car back in one piece. So we got to work! The six of us pulled off what i would call a "Miracle". Within those 14 hours we had the car completely torn down and rebuilt. Cody and the others worked on getting the car itself back up and running. While Keith from Garret Turbos and I worked on getting the aero all back together. Every piece of carbon fiber aero was damaged and needed to be repaired. Let me just say i learned a lot in carbon fiber epoxy repair. With a judicious use of spare tires and 2x4s we rigged up supports and weights in order to keep the epoxy and the parts curing where we wanted them!
I had been on the road for 17 hours finally arriving in town, finally found myself a hotel to crash at. When i was about to finally set my head down for some much need sleep, i got a call from Cody. He needed help changing out the secondary fuel pump on the car because he was experiencing fuel starvation mid corner. Let me tell you that Sunoco Q16 race fuel is a potent mixture.... Spent most of the night hanging out, swapping the pump didn't take long. Finally got back to the hotel around 3am, i had been up for over 40 hours.
The morning after the fuel pump was replaced. The car went out for the morning practice session. I was supposed to have made it out, but overslept.
Turns out during the session Cody and Tabitha had a pretty epic Ooops moment...... at Engineers corner. Many many big time names have done the same at this corner.
Pikes Peak Crash - YouTube
Pic taken by Joel Yust on the mountain. The first two, he took is when he almost got ran over by the car! Snapped a shot incidentally while he was trying to jump out of the way.
Cody was fine, Tabitha was injured. When the car finally came down on 4 wheels, there was a boulder under her seat that pushed the floor pan up approximately 8". She was literally put between a rock and a hard place.... The motion compressed her spine and she's been in serious pain ever since. But she's a real Trooper! She messaged, "Make sure to bring my gear in the morning."
The car suffered severe damage to the aero. It took 3 pickups to bring the parts that came off the car down to the pits. The chassis itself was in pretty decent shape, nothing really damaged minus the floor pan. Radiators were leaking as well as some electrical getting shaken up and killing the engine.
I showed up to our headquarters when i saw they had gotten back. Then i saw the carnage myself.... I knew i was in for a long night.
Here's what i saw when i arrived....
So the boys and i got to work repairing the car. Had only 14 hours to have the car back in one piece. So we got to work! The six of us pulled off what i would call a "Miracle". Within those 14 hours we had the car completely torn down and rebuilt. Cody and the others worked on getting the car itself back up and running. While Keith from Garret Turbos and I worked on getting the aero all back together. Every piece of carbon fiber aero was damaged and needed to be repaired. Let me just say i learned a lot in carbon fiber epoxy repair. With a judicious use of spare tires and 2x4s we rigged up supports and weights in order to keep the epoxy and the parts curing where we wanted them!
