By Miles Wilson
Jul 24, 2018
Racer Johnnie Lackey had to retire his 73’ Celica from a track day early due to an unexpected failure, time for a lexan windshield as weight savings?
7/24/18 10:39 a.m.
What the hell happened??
7/24/18 10:42 a.m.
Looks more like a torsional rigidity issue...
7/24/18 11:09 a.m.
Hard on brakes, chassis flexes, windshield shatters?
7/24/18 11:13 a.m.
I just want to point out how calm and composed he was to keep driving through that corner when everything went white in front of him.
7/24/18 11:18 a.m.
That reminds me, I need to check the brightness of the brake lights on my E28.
Adam
7/24/18 11:22 a.m.
Can somebody re-edit the audio in this to include the sound of a "pop goes the weasel" wind up toy?
7/24/18 11:47 a.m.
Just a guess - thinking something thrown up by the car in front hit the windshield and then....pop goes the weasel. The right rear tire of the car in front just barely goes off the pavement just before the incident....
7/24/18 5:12 p.m.
I'm concerned that he chose to stop right on the racing line, on the exit no less. For just a broken windshield? What am I missing?
7/24/18 5:16 p.m.
That's my guess, too.
7/24/18 5:21 p.m.
I'm going with this.
I'm surprised the entire windshield went white. That should be laminate, but it cracked like tempered.
7/24/18 5:35 p.m.
That was my thought too.
The windshield on my ZX2SR got hit bt a sizeable rock, Didn't do anything like that.
Then at 45 yrs. maybe it got brittle.
7/24/18 5:54 p.m.
Looks like tempered instead of laminated glass? Weird.
7/24/18 6:43 p.m.
I call structural flex, perhaps combined with an impact from something. Old Japanese glass probably built to a different standard, I guess. Surely would wake a guy up.
7/24/18 7:51 p.m.
glass does get brittle with age. Combine that with torsional twist and even the smallest rock impact at just the right time.. and boom.
I do not race, I found it odd he stopped on track. I would have pulled off as deep as I could. In a situation like that, do you get towed in, or do you limp back?
7/25/18 7:08 a.m.
Wow! Just Wow!
7/25/18 12:32 p.m.
Well, glass is, by definition, brittle to start with. Perhaps 'more brittle with age...' is a more apt description.
True story - playing touch football in neighbor's front yard back in the mid-60's. Like a good kid I took off my glasses (glass lenses back then) and put them on the trunk of my neighbor's car. While playing, he came out, got in the car and took off down the street. 2 plays later -- oh sh!t! 5-6 of us fan out walking down the street looking for my glasses. About 10 houses down we find them. Overjoyed, despite a nick or two in the right lens, I put them on and head back up the street to resume our game. Just then my dad is coming up the street/home from work. As he sees us/is driving by he toots the horn to say hi. When the horn sounds the right lens with the chips in it shatters -- pretty much like the windshield in the vid. And, I got in trouble anyway.
That was the memory conjured by the vid.
7/26/18 7:44 p.m.
Johnnie and Scott (BMW in the vid) are friends of mine.
Johnnie believes it was chassis flex.
I've ridden as a passenger in that car at NCCAR. Car is not particularly fast off the line but Johnnie is an outstanding driver and wrings every last bit of grip out of it. As a point of reference, that BMW in the vid was running about 500 hp at the time (Scott's no slouch behind the wheel either) and it wasn't exactly running away from the little Celica.
7/26/18 8:30 p.m.
The timing of brakes and shift right as it pops seems culpable.
7/27/18 5:05 a.m.
HAHA! I'm the driver of the Celica.
It was chassis flex that did in the windshield. I can attest no rocks hit it, and I reviewed the 1080 video to make sure. It pops at the exact time I let the clutch out downshifting.
The windshield was the original for the car, and it was indeed tempered glass.
As for stopping on line, it just so happened, my other buddy on the track was spun out in front of us and it was red flag when I stopped, and I also knew no one was behind me on track. This was also a rather private event, I think only 7 or 8 of us had free rein on of the track, so some rules became... well(in my best pirate voice) "They be more like guide lines"
7/27/18 7:56 a.m.
Watch the video again, it was the Russians. LOL, cool video, thanks for sharing, some good lessons to be learned there.
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