>>Last Thursday i lost the love of my life - and very much unpaid for - and almost killed me best friend. Although i'd love to say it was not driver error - i am 99% guilty. Earlier that day i'd had the 1st tire rotation done on the RM MCO at 10,000 miles, had planned to go to KC for the big 10,000 mile service and run me 2nd Scca Solo 11 event at Council Bluffs on Sun. Anyhow on me way to soccer (yes i still TRY to play) on thursday night the run-flat warning light started to flash. After reading the manual we got it to stop. NO AIR WAS MISSING FORM THE TIRES. To make a long story short we headed up a city road i travelled at speed many a time. There was a lot of water on the road due to sprinklers watering the office complexes. I'd gone through 3 curves doing 90mph when i came to a fairly sharp right hander - in a flash the whole back end came around - had not had this feeling before in the mini - so i panicked and braked hard. We flew sideways between 2 trees over a 6foot retaining wall. flipped twice at least. skidded on the driver's side and ended up on that side. Luckly i did not hit anybody & and did not injure or kill my friend. He told me we were a little over 90 mph. So now i feel among other things foolish, stupid for thinking i could control me car at speed. I had so many plans to get lessons etc. But i F***ed it all up. The bright side is this car does hold up, as i say we dropped over a 6 foot wall side ways at 90 mph and no injuries. Just thought i'd give my reasons for having to leave this great the board.

 

How old are you may I ask?

 

Do I get the feeling that most people feel "Invencible" and "Immune" to the laws of physics when their are behind the wheel of their MINIs??

 

>> and run me 2nd Scca Solo 11 event at Council Bluffs on Sun. reading the manual we got it to stop. NO AIR WAS MISSING FORM THE TIRES. To make a long story short we headed up a city road i travelled at speed many a time. There was a lot of water on the road due to sprinklers watering the office complexes. I'd gone through 3 curves doing 90mph when i came to a fairly sharp right hander - in a flash the whole back end came around - had not had this feeling before in the mini - so i panicked and braked hard. We flew sideways between 2 trees over a 6foot retaining wall. flipped twice at least. skidded on the driver's side and ended up on that side. Luckly i did not hit anybody & and did not injure or kill my friend. He told me we were a little over 90 mph. So now i feel among other things foolish, stupid for thinking i could control me car at speed. I had so many plans to get lessons etc. But i F***ed it all up.
>>

Marzeetc

You got what you deserved. 90mph driving through an office complex. You obviously done this before based on your quote of "heading up a city road I've traveled at speed many a time" This time you regret it because you crashed.

Also, what does "I feel amoung other things foolish, stupide for thinking I could control me car at speed. I had so many plans to get lessons, etc." mean. Does this mean if you had gotten lessons on controlling your car you would have been able to take the turn at 90mph and not crash. You shouldn't be driving like that on the street in the first place. I am an instructor on the race track and for autocross and I would just like to say 90% of us who race don't drive like that on the street. You are really, really lucky you didn't hurt yourself, your friend and an innocent bystander.

Hopefully your license will be suspended and you'll think twice about doing that again. We all pay high auto insurance premiums because of people like you. If you want to drive fast that are plenty of weekend autocrosses or track events that you can attend. The street is no place for driving like that. You don't deserve a Mini.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, hopefully you will learn from this experience. We all make mistakes, and everyone deserves a second chance.

RaceCarDriver

 

I think some of the safety oriented "driving aids" like DSC are actually encouraging this kind of reckless driving behavior.

Some people think they aren't driving hard enough unless the DSC kicks in.

Others think they can drive as hard as they dare because DSC and the other TLAs will somehow save them no matter what.

 

Actually d-mini-ero your post wasn't an attack. I still say bashing someone is not the way to educate. Marzeetc paid the price, his friend payed the price. Obviously I wasn't there but I wonder if his friend asked him to slow down? I doubt it, having been in similar situations I find that if a passenger asks, the driver will relent.

To you personally d-mini-ero, I have never seen one of your posts that attacked another poster, including those on this thread. I find your posts well written and thoughtful in nature. I don't always agree with your opinions but you state them very well.

To summarize, I don't think this thread is helping Marzeetc. He knows he was driving too fast. If trashing his car doesn't teach him to slow down, flames on a message board surely won't.

Sorry this post was so long in coming, had customers in and out all morning.

 

>>I am fully responsible for the stupid way i drove. as we very spinning in the air my friend told me later that i was screaming "what stupid thing have i done". i know i was wrong and had put the 99% out there hoping somehow i should have been able to control the car. i believe i will learn from this.

We've all done stupid things! Even the people bashing you can probably come up with some of their own if they search their memory enough. I know you'll be beating yourself up about it for a while, but that's ok! Sharing your story is a good thing! I know that my MINI can give me a feeling of invincibility due to its great handling, but reading stories like yours brings us all back to reality. Thanks for the post and I'm glad nobody was hurt! Live and learn.

 

I always felt the only difference between a good experience and a bad experience is, you learn nothing from a bad experience. Good luck, glad no one was seriously injured. And thank you for honestly sharing your story. I hope it was a good experience for me.
RAT

 

Marz,

Sorry to here what happened. I also made a mistake and totaled a car. I think your getting enough of the tough love here. There is no question that streets are not the place to play or learn, but you know that.

Let me say this though, to error is human, to learn is important and too forgive is define. Don't waste a lot of time kicking yourself, I know I've been there. Your ok, your friend is ok everything else will work itself out in time. Vow not to screw around on public roads, thank your lucky stars, and move on.

Waisting time feeling like a jerk is not going too help. Put it to bed.

 

thank your lucky stars that you, your friend and no one else was seriously injured or died. working in physical therapy i've seen a few car crash victims, either those driving or those innocents. some i can't possibly imagine myself being able to deal with the drastic change in daily living.

you've been given a second chance. don't waste it. enjoy life. live life to its fullest. but don't waste it. you won't get a second chance. by all accounts you're extremely lucky, this time.

i hope we don't hear of another horrific driver-at-fault crash or mini totaling like this again.

 

I've taken advantage of my DSC a few times and as such, find your story especially frightening. Now that my car is a few months old and the British circuitry is nearing the end of it's life-span, the run-flat and DSC system occasionally goes crazy. I imagine that a sudden DSC failure mid-turn would result in an immediate and total loss of control that no driver could recover from.

I'd be willing to bet that your DSC was keeping you in a perfect 4-wheel drift and then all of a sudden "went British" and flipped-out like it did the day before.

I very much appreciate you having the courage to post your story here, in the face of more anger than you ever imagined, I'm sure. I have learned from your story.

 

My only regret here is that Randy's good name and reputation as a top-notch tuner was mentioned in the thread title.

I learned a similar lesson about how NOT to handle a high performance car in a skid. Fortunately, I learned this lesson on a closed race-track with an instructor in the passenger seat. I took my VW GTI into a turn too fast and hit the brakes when I shouldn't have and found myself going backwards at 90mph into a prarie dog town. No flips, no embankments, no office parks, nothing to hit and I was back on the track within a minute.

Sorry to hear that you lost your MCS. A tough and expensive lesson, and thankfully no innocents were harmed in the process.

 

I'd like to thank you all for you comments and again THANK GOD or whatever religion you believe in that my friend or anyone else was not injured in anyway from my nutty actions. This was not to run Randy's very good name down. The upgrades offered by Randy or anyother performance shop make a good car great - just not in my hands. Randy is truely a wonderful person and anyone thinking of upgrading their mini SHOULD TALK & DEAL WITH RANDY.
Maybe a confession of how stupid i am. i don't know. i do find the one thing really confusing here though - coming from the citizens of the very first country to abdicate on personal responsibility, you are telling me to take responsibility when i have. Trial Lawyers have made untold billions in this country from this lack of personal responsibility - smoke lawsuits, beer lawsuits, greedy shareholder lawsuits the list goes on and on and on. Hopefully people in this great country are going to turn this around and be responsible for their actions.
But i will not hold my breath on that. I see fast-food chains are now next on the bollix trial lawyers agenda. Anyway thank you for your comments.
Everyone GODBLESS.

 

“It seems unfair that God limited man’s intelligence without also limiting his stupidity.” Marzeetc take note, your actions were not "nutty", they were "STUPID". You are one lucky person who was served a relatively painless wake-up call. You survived your self induced act of stupidity with no fatalities. Now all you have to do is stay awake and start driving more responsibly.

Being honest and admitting you were in error is the fist step. Looking deep inside and trying to understand why you were driving so foolishly will be more difficult because you will have own up to the fact you are a candidate for the gene pool improvement program. You will have to take action to stay alive.

If you want to go really fast, take it to the track and learn that no matter how good a car is they can not overcome laws of physics. Track time will let you learn the limits of your vehicles so you can drive well below them when motoring on the streets.

We all make mistakes, but yours was a major mistake that flat out should not have occurred which is why so many are jumping on your case. Your driving scares the hell out of me because it could kill. Life is too valuable to be wasted by brain dead actions on your part. Wake up and think about how easily you could have killed innocent people and destroyed lives of their families. Start driving responsibly.

 

>>My only regret here is that Randy's good name and reputation as a top-notch tuner was mentioned in the thread title.
>><<

****The original title of this thread was misleading. I edited it to reflect the actual content and relevance of what transpired. Moorlockx pointed out to me the importance of keeping this thread alive as a caution to others, so I'm now unlocking it.****



_________________


MCO Moderator | "Wicked Wanda" '03 All Jet Black MCS!!!

 

****THIS THREAD IS NOW RE-OPENED FOR COMMENTS****

 

>>I've taken advantage of my DSC a few times and as such, find your story especially frightening. Now that my car is a few months old and the British circuitry is nearing the end of it's life-span, the run-flat and DSC system occasionally goes crazy. I imagine that a sudden DSC failure mid-turn would result in an immediate and total loss of control that no driver could recover from.
>>
>>I'd be willing to bet that your DSC was keeping you in a perfect 4-wheel drift and then all of a sudden "went British" and flipped-out like it did the day before.
>>
>>I very much appreciate you having the courage to post your story here, in the face of more anger than you ever imagined, I'm sure. I have learned from your story.

DSC systems are designed to help keep your car in line, however DSC systems CANNOT reverse the laws of physics.


RaceCarDriver

 

anything that doesn't kill you makes you stronger

 

>>anything that doesn't kill you makes you stronger <<...and hopefully wiser

Thanks MiniClo for reopening this thread for general comments and reading. While it seems most of the obvious points to be covered, have, this is still a perfect example of how a combination of smaller mistakes can escalate into a devastatingly huge one.

Marzeetc, while I, in no way, can condone the driving that brought this about, I'm glad you did bring it on the forum. Hopefully in doing so, it'll prevent us from reading a similar tale in the future from (or about) someone else who wasn't quite as lucky

 

Yikes! I'm glad to hear that u guys are ok... and especially that no one else was hurt either...

I too want to see how the MINI looks after all that... see how well it holds up... if u dont mind posting any pics...