View Single Post
      02-01-2011, 07:56 AM   #39
onebluemcm
Captain
onebluemcm's Avatar
39
Rep
631
Posts

Drives: '07 Z4MC
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Richmond, VA

iTrader: (0)

Quote:
Originally Posted by VMZ432 View Post
Thanks all, yes yes.... very lucky. Love that gate. May buy that gate a present.

The car just went in this (Tuesday) morning so I don't know any more just yet. To answer some qu's I was using Motol 600 and Hawk HPS pads. Yes... I know I shouldn't have been pushing those pads hard and probably not tracking them at all, especially with the supercharger, but they were what I had at the time, and they were only one track day old and one month into their lives. It is also possible that I didn't give them enough time to bed in initially, and I didn't visually inspect to make sure the transfer layer had gone across.

The failure happened only about 4 laps in to the third session of my day. Also there was a break for lunch and an excursion to get fuel before that third session. FWIW the pad wear sensor didn't go off until after the spin.

Yes, there were signs. And I wasn't ignoring them, I just didn't realise how serious things were getting. There were signs earlier in the day too, but it was really wet for the first session, and greasy for half of the second, so I didn't push them THAT hard, although both of those sessions were a little over 30 mins each. I think lucid's comments about an IR gun are spot on and that is on my list, along with being more proactive about my brakes and generally being more cautious about things I already know may not be up to scratch.

I don't want this thread to turn into Hawk HPS bashing though. There is enough of that in other threads, and because of the bedding in question it doesn't really add anything new to all the chatter. If anything I think this thread is a reminder to be more awear of your brakes in every way you can, and also to make sure you have exit plans for all corners, especially the ones you are going into fast. Knowing I could go through that gate and being able to accurately visualize that part of the track before I got there allowed me to plan and I believe saved my ass. Being more proactive about my brakes would most likely have stopped the whole thing happening in the first place.

Have been very interested reading all this discussion and will have to read it again to digest. In reference to Hack's levels I think I would be around "Beginner/Intermediate to intermediate".
This is THE take home message of this entire thread so far. This always seems to be the case - signs were there and not looked into thoroughly enough. We'll see what the failure was hopefully, maybe it'll turn out to be something random that wouldn't have given any clue even on visual inspection, we'll see. Someone mentioned that the car in my avatar had a brake failure to result in a multiple endo crash, and this is correct, and an example of how lucky the OP is. After the wreck, we were informed that the pedal had gone nearly to the floor earlier in the lap, but then pressure did normalize for subsequent turns until it was just suddenly gone at a very bad time (150+ at the end of a straightaway). The "moral" of the story here is that a normally functioning brake system will not do severely weird things without something substantial being wrong. Certain predictable things will happen as brakes wear during a session or race, but they are predictable. If anything happens that is out side of these predictable changes or sensations, the best thing is to have an abundance of caution and fully inspect the system; reckless abandon, assuming "oh, it'll be fine", can result in just barely skirting through a gate (best case scenario) or worse (total loss of a car)..... In a race, I can see trying to continue on because it's a race... In a non-racing situation, there is no legitimate reason to not stop, pull wheels and inspect the system if anything out of the ordinary happens.
__________________
<img src=http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll30/onebluemcm/RG63_08-1-1.jpg border=0 alt= />
|=.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-.=|
Silbergrau A08 / Sepang Brown LSD6 / Carbon Leather 4MY (1 of 3, this combo)
RAC RG63 | Conti EC-DW | GC/Koni-Dinan | Rogue RSM | Arqray | Autosolutions | BMW brace | Pinnacle tint
Appreciate 0