I'm sitting in the tire waiting area at the Watkins Glen WalMart because some shiny happy person left a large screw in a road that I must have picked up last night while getting gas. I'm missing one of my 4 half-hour sessions today. I'm pissed. I just needed to vent. Carry on.
Almost hit an engine on the way home from work a few weeks ago.
Old racer superstition: tape a nail to the roll cage to ward off such happenings
I always carry a tire plug kit in all my cars and to the track. It has saved me countless times over the years. You can get them at K Mart for about $10.00 it comes with about 20 plugs and all the tools needed.
Other than that how is the track day going?
My particular peeve in this area would be road gators.
This kind:
Not this kind, although I wouldn't care for these either. I don't think drivers knowingly leave these for others to hit.
Yeah, road gators of any kind pretty much suck...
Especially when they appear with a huge cloud of debris 100 yards in front of you at 65 mph
I hit a Christmas tree on the 101 freeway several years back.
They are repaving a mile or 3 of the CD beltway and the rocks being kicked are so bad I've started cutting through DC to avoid it.
On my way back from the last autocross I went to, a large piece of chrome trim flew off from the SUV in front of me and headed straight toward me. I spiked the brakes and swerved hard right, and the trim landed in the road just to my left. After I recovered and passed the SUV, I realized it had an aftermarket grill, now missing its surround.
I was headed north on I-25 a few years ago, and all of a sudden a cloud of dust appeared on the shoulder of the SB lane in the distance. As I got closer, I realized it was an Infiniti J30 that had rolled at least once.. The driver got out as I approached, and about 100 yards north of where their car had stopped was a Little Tykes playhouse in the center of the SB lanes.
Another time, I was following a relatively slow moving box van and had the urge to pass, but that little voice in my head told me that was a bad idea. Not 5 seconds later, a big cloud of tan dust appeared under the truck, immediately followed by the image of what I believe to be a Kmart MDF entertainment center split in half, with each piece spinning outward toward the shoulders of the Interstate. If I ever find the driver of that truck, I owe him a beer.
Idiots should never be allowed to borrow a truck to move ! (Says the guy who dragged a Herman Miller office chair down the road by a tie-down wrapped around the leg for about a mile before realizing why the cars in the other direction were all flashing their headlights at him
)
I can't tell you how many aluminum ladders I've seen on the side of the road, terminally mangled. My favorite story involving me driving doesn't involve road debris, but a early 70's Lincoln Continental.
Yep, ladders are one of my favorites, but that Honda engine and tranny in the middle of the granny lane takes the cake. Bet it will still fire. I should have tossed it in the trunk of the focus.
NOHOME wrote:
anybody feel like walking down the edge of the road if a car or truck comes along?
Exploding brake rotors can ruin your day. I had one end up in the passenger seat 20 years back.
I got my 924s for virtually nothing due to the PO hitting a battery on the back strait just before the bus stop at the glen.
Knocked the crank pulley loose and the op freewheeled. Motor was toast. It hit so hard that there is a dent in the spare tire tub that was made by the back of the trans. Once I got the new motor in I discovered that the R&P had shattered.
Last summer on the way home from an autocross in the Miata with the top down, a pick up truck coming in the opposite direction launched a mattress from the back which lazily spun like a frisbee just over my head by about two feet. Never touched me or the car but a few feet in either direction or a few seconds earlier or later...........well that would have left a mark!
While driving home from work at 2 a.m. Dad hit a hospital bed that had fallen off a PU truck. Punched holes in the right side tires you could put your fist through. Took a long time for him to live that one down.
Harmonic balancer broke off a truck engine and bounced across a four lane intersection into the driver window of a car sitting at the traffic light. Struck the lady driver in the head killing her instantly. That's one of the strangest stories I've ever heard, happened about ten years ago on the same road I drove every day. I had just driven through there about twenty minutes previous.
Four deer come bounding across the four lane road I drive to work at 6 a.m. The SUV passing on my left rear quarter clobbered one. I knew it was damn close... but later that day I found deer hair in the trim strip on that rear quarter of my car, no other damage.
two years ago, I was sitting at a light when a semi passed going the other way (I was waiting on the red arrow to make a left) it kicked up some debris from an accident earlier and some glass wound up coming in the open window.. cutting my cheek
You too? On the way to the first HPDE I ever did I smacked a 20 foot aluminum ladder that was laying across 2 lanes in the P71 around a blind corner. I saw it early enough to slow from 70 to maybe 45, but I hit that sucker dead on. Luckily I still had the cop steelies and tires at the time. Didn't do jack to the car, but I needed new pants (figuratively), and I had to run through traffic to go clear the mess.
The kicker was exactly one week later in the exact same spot was another berkeleying ladder! For some reason I had slowed down in case there was a ladder. I was pretty shocked to be right!! 
Be glad you didn't take the FB that day 
I was out riding motorcycles with a buddy of mine one evening, when we came across a whole gaggle of deer in the middle of the road. Anytime I ride the motorcycle in the dark, I must blink once every five minutes.
ride a motorcycle. you'll hate debris 10X worse
Every time I see junk like ladders, chairs, furniture, what-have-you in the shoulders of the highway, I can't help but think about being right behind it on my motorcycle.
Seriously people, tie your E36 M3 down.
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