Hill Climb in the rain = crash

10/08-2008

On Sunday the 10th of August everything was ready for the best Hill Climb in the series. The route is perfect and very difficult but unfortunately the weather was bad with lots of rain. Half ways through the course on the second trail run disaster stroke and I under steered directly into the cause barrier. The right front wheel hit the barrier and was pushed into the body of the car. Lots of pieces were broken in the suspension, the radiator was damages and the antirollbar was bent.
The accident was caused by a very wet road (and of course me driving to fast in this conditions) due to the rainy weather and even though I drove very slowly when hitting the barrier the car was badly damages. The repair will take a lot of work and several new parts.

Seeing what kind of damages the car took at this low speed accident I’ve started to reevaluate the sanity in using it for Hill Climbs. The combination of driving in the fastest class and having a minimum of racing experience might not be the best cocktail. As I’m only racing in the Hill Climb series I have no change of training giving me a total of less than 30 minutes of race experience in the car. This is further problematic in a wet race as I never drive the car in the wet and only have driven one trip back in 2006 in the rain. This was on the old springs, dampers and tires and therefore hasn’t given me much knowledge of how the car behaves when it’s slippery. Maybe it would be better to find an old Kadett or something like that in Germany and race that in class 8 where the speed is considerable lower.
Let’s see how the repair comes along and how the feeling towards this issue is when the Seven is once again ready for racing…