After a Crash, Part 2: The Day After the Wreck

Read Part 1

Read Part 3

Crashes happen and most race cars are repairable, depending on the amount of damage. 

When a severe crash happens, sometimes it is easier to start over than it is to fix the crashed car. The biggest determining factor in whether to fix a badly crashed car is often cost. If the cost to fix exceeds the value or worth of the car, it may be time to start fresh. 

The tow truck dumped the twisted carcass of my M3 in the paddock as the ambulance carried me through. I craned my neck and peered out the tiny window while strapped to the stretcher. 

The car was an ugly sight. Most of the damage was in the front, but the hit rotated the car around and also smashed the rear quarter panel. 

As we pulled out of the track, I was already messaging a junkyard for front-end body parts. There was a sinking feeling in my heart that the car was beyond repair.

The morning following the crash, Hugh and I removed all the damaged body panels. (Hugh Stewart owns Hi-Speed Motorsports, the shop that maintains my car.) Fenders, hood, bumper—all went straight into the scrap pile. 

Removing the panels allows the body shop a clear view of the damage to the car. Hugh works his magic on dozens of crunched race cars each season but was not optimistic about what the body shop would say about this one.

In order to fix a crunched car, body shops need to reverse the inertia that went into the body from the collision. The car is put on a frame machine that can pull the chassis in all directions. 

First, the car gets pulled to put the firewall back where it belongs. Next, they pull and align the front chassis legs, mounting points and subframe. Even if the parts are damaged, the first step in squaring up a car is to pull back to the core.

It is critical that the four suspension points are lined up and square. If these points are not square and level, you will have a crooked race car that will be difficult to set up and align. 

In theory, the track could be off and you would never be able to fix it. It could be like having 10mm spacers on one side of the car and 25mm spacers on the other. Or the car could crab towards one side as it drives down a straightaway. The results of unpredictable behavior on track would be maddening.

In the case of my M3, both front chassis legs were damaged, so both would need to be cut off and replaced after the body shop got the rest of the car straight. The transmission tunnel and floors were buckled and split open at the factory seams. The rear quarter panel would need to be cut entirely off and replaced with a new quarter panel directly from Germany. Body panels get replaced after the frame is straightened.

Our friends at the body shop gave us a quote of $8000 to straighten the frame, replace both chassis legs, and weld on a new quarter panel. Another shop at the track offered to just square up the car for $10,000, no parts included. It was looking like an extremely expensive fix. 

These costs were just the tip of the iceberg to have a straight chassis and did not include repair or replacement of any of the other broken components on the car. 

The No. 12 hit a concrete Jersey barrier head on. Had the car hit a bundle of tires or an Armco wall, it would have been salvageable because these barriers around the track are designed to absorb a large deal of the energy. Instead, my 2700-pound car lost a fight with a 4000-pound concrete slab and moved it several feet.

There was enough energy that went through the chassis that the cage’s dash bar was bent. This would mean additional time in repairs to cut out and replace the bent bars. When cage bars become bent in an impact, it creates a spring effect in the chassis that will have undesirable results on track. 

We decided to scrap the chassis and start anew. 

A fresh shell and new cage were more cost- and time-effective than attempting to smooth out the crumpled foil ball that used to be my race car. Hugh and I decided we were going to build the new chassis in time for our next SCCA race, the Runoffs. The clock was ticking: We had just over 60 days before the Runoffs.

 

We stripped all the parts off the chassis and dragged the skeleton to the junkyard. The guys at the junkyard put on a good show for us with the hydraulic claw and balled it up even more before tossing it aside. 

Racing can be cruel. The car was over a year in the making and then destroyed just weeks after completion. After netting $34 for the scrap metal, we headed back to the shop. 

Time to start over.

 

Read the rest of the series:

Part 1: Three Types of Wrecks

Part 3: Seeking Racing Justice

Part 4: Building a New Race Car From Scratch

Part 5: A New Roll Cage for the New Race Car

Part 6: The Thrash to Meet a Firm Deadline, the SCCA Runoffs

Part 7: Before Returning to the Track, Time to Make It Look Like a Real Race Car

Part 8: 60 Days After Destroying the Race Car and Building a New One, It's Time to Take the Green at the Runoffs

Part 9: Pondering Future Racing Plans

 

 

How Christina got her  start in motorsports.

 

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