Hairiest Moments

[SSO]

Had a discussion the other day with a good friend who is a hard core pistonhead. We got to swapping stories about the hairiest moments we have had in different supercars. I think mine was probably in the F40:

I had owned the car for a bit over a year and was driving back from Maranello to Madrid. I was on the A21 south of Milan when it started to sprinkle. I was closely abiding to the speed limit for F40s in Italy. At the last petrol stop, I had met a kind member of the Carabinieri who informed me of the speed limit by stating “you just go, I want to hear the car and I will tell my friends you are coming; they will not bother you”. Seeing the water on the windshield, I immediately lifted off and, in a few minutes, we were back down to around 140 kph. The decision to back off was incredibly fortunate as at that point, the skies completely opened up and the rain came down in sheets. Effective is not the first term that comes to mind when describing the F40s windshield wipers, and visibility dropped dramatically. At that point the F40 hit a large pool of standing water and I became a passenger. We skimmed along for what felt like an eternity (it probably was 5 seconds) before I could feel rubber reattaching itself to pavement. I was very fortunate that the road was dead straight in that section, we were pointed dead straight when we hit the water, there was no traffic around us, and we were coasting.


Yours?

 

[Dis86]

Nearly dying but that's a daft one. Funniest was going round a roundabout when it was snowing and the back end of my BMW completely went. I drifted 3/4 of the way around and managed to just get traction at the junction I wanted.
To a bystander it would have looked amazing. To me it was nearly brown trouser time.

 

[ahar]

Ignoring the plenty of times where my small amount of talent has run out on track and I've luckily missed walls and other cars, on the public road it was coming over the brow of a hill and finding a car broken down and stopped in Lane 2 of the motorway. That was a brown trouser moment as I worked out how to miss it without hitting the cars either side of me or slowing down so quickly the car behind me hit me!

It was Christmas day morning as well, driving to see the in-laws

 

[OllyM]

 

[sideways14a]

Pretty much every free roundabout when its wet.... er or dry..

Which reminds me, i need new rubber.

 

[Rroff]

Probably hairiest moment was coming around a high sided double bend at night to find a broken down car in my lane just around the apex - I don't take it fast but at the normal speed I and most other drivers do it I wouldn't have been able to stop in time - fortunately I'd slowed up a bit more than usual by pure chance and the other lane was clear for me to use.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.9...4!1styv48eWLkz1msXehKsPC8A!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Also encountered people walking around that bend at 2am on the inside as well! with just their mobile phones out to show they are there.

EDIT: Here is one from last night why it is a good idea to drive sensibly in the rain

There were more vehicles involved.

 

[iamdjdz]

Was driving in the Sierra Nevada mountains in a rented A class giving it some when I went round a bend and found a bloke on Rollerblades with ski poles heading down the middle of the road at some pace downhill. That caused quite a swerve in shock..

 

[Will Gill]

Had a discussion the other day with a good friend who is a hard core pistonhead. We got to swapping stories about the hairiest moments we have had in different supercars. I think mine was probably in the F40:

I had owned the car for a bit over a year and was driving back from Maranello to Madrid. I was on the A21 south of Milan when it started to sprinkle. I was closely abiding to the speed limit for F40s in Italy. At the last petrol stop, I had met a kind member of the Carabinieri who informed me of the speed limit by stating “you just go, I want to hear the car and I will tell my friends you are coming; they will not bother you”. Seeing the water on the windshield, I immediately lifted off and, in a few minutes, we were back down to around 140 kph. The decision to back off was incredibly fortunate as at that point, the skies completely opened up and the rain came down in sheets. Effective is not the first term that comes to mind when describing the F40s windshield wipers, and visibility dropped dramatically. At that point the F40 hit a large pool of standing water and I became a passenger. We skimmed along for what felt like an eternity (it probably was 5 seconds) before I could feel rubber reattaching itself to pavement. I was very fortunate that the road was dead straight in that section, we were pointed dead straight when we hit the water, there was no traffic around us, and we were coasting.


Yours?

Mine was very similar, just lacking the F40 part

Hit a 'river' of standing water and span the car loads of times, flew off the side of the road, dug some holes and cut some grass

 

[kaiowas]

Mine’s from my “young and reckless” days. I used to have a daily commute that amounted to a half hour blast along the same country lanes every day that I got to know very well. I only had a gutless little Cinquecento which basically meant that driving everywhere flat out was more or less mandatory. One evening on my way home from work I came around a sweeping left hander whilst pressing on only to be confronted with a cyclist in front of me and oncoming traffic on the other side of the road. I just hit the brakes, aimed for the gap and closed my eyes. Not entirely sure how I got through but I took it onboard as a warning and a lucky escape and calmed things down a bit from then onwards.

 

[Hades]

Pretty much every free roundabout when its wet.... er or dry..

Which reminds me, i need new rubber.

Strong username to post content correlation.

 

[adam cool dude]

I was young and driving like a tit in the snow in my old Nissan Primera GT. Car just stopped in front of me and I was just a passenger sliding into the back of him. Somehow I managed to swerve and get up onto the kerb and onto the pavement and slid between a lamp post and post box into someone's garden. Not a single scratch.

Other one I was a 17 year old passenger in my friends 106 when his friend pulled the handbrake mid corner and we slid sideways down a dyke but somehow managed to claw back out of it and back up onto the road. It was a proper initial D moment.

 

[Rroff]

Hit a 'river' of standing water and span the car loads of times, flew off the side of the road, dug some holes and cut some grass

Have to say I'm a little scared with my Bridgestone Turanza T005s - nights like last night I see everyone else struggling but they are completely untroubled it is far too easy to get overconfident and I have no idea the limits of them.

 

[Scania]

Blow out, O/S/F steering axle in an artic running at 44t maximum weight, 55mph with a Volvo FH artic coming at me on the opposite carriageway, somehow I held it enough to "kiss" the barrier rather than plough through it into the oncoming HGV, very nearly quit driving after that....

Vaguely remember posting here about it long ago...

 

[DereksDontRun]

switchback Alp roads during the summer about 8 years ago. I was the passenger in some tiny fragile dodgy little car, can't remember what it was, but was about the size/shape of a 107 or Cinquecento.

During one of the switchbacks we slid, presumably on some diesel, and by a 50/50 chance it caught the mountain side instead of rolling off and down the side (and presumably into oblivion). No obvious damage except the front nearside wheel had hit a rock and was now pointing a new direction by about 15 degrees. So, we had something like 40km to make in about 90mins for me to get my transfer. We continued gingerly, with this wheel squealing away, and the car either crabbing or sliding about on every wet/slippery patch we drove over. So, down the mountain, stopping a few times to see the tyre getting balder and balder... We made it into Italy and towards the Mont Blanc tunnel - this has a minimum speed limit... we felt we couldn't get anywhere near it... It's about 11km drive through a dark tunnel, with smooth/slippery tarmac, in a car crabbing along and sliding anytime an oncoming truck drove past, while the cars behind us were p'd off and tooting that we weren't near the min speed limit. We questioned whether to stop in an emergency layby a couple times, but with the now bald tyre we knew we would be screwed for an unroadworthy car, so pushed on. By the time we made it through the tunnel we could hear the tyre's canvas brushing around the wheel-well, but pleased we only had a km or 2 to go. Made it with about 15mins to go, before my bus turned up - I think I spend about 10 of those on the toilet...

 

[mushtafa]

Perhaps not the worst, but one I certainly remember.
Back in my youth I had a MK1 Clio 16v and was racing a friend with his MK2 Golf GTi. Dual carriageway, nearly at triple figures, got to the brow of the hill to find traffic at a standstill. OMFG! I was just about to take to the grass verge but somehow stopped. We were both good, but didn't drive like that again for a while. And I still don't drive that road fast today, I'm always aware of the chance it could happen again.

 

[Rroff]

got to the brow of the hill to find traffic at a standstill.

Similar thing happened near me caused a crash - as much as anything due to pants on head retarded roadwork layout but probably speed involved as well. Right after a left hand bend at the brow of a hill they started the roadworks speed restrictions which at busy times of day resulted in people coming around the bend over the hill into a steep downhill stretch with traffic suddenly a lot slower and/or stopped.

https://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/18822619.two-taken-hospital-vehicle-overturns-a30-crash/

 

[Nasher]

I once spun an MX-5 clear off a roundabout trying to drift it in very heavy rain. In front of loads of traffic too

Luckily there was a big run off, but I did bend a suspension strut and destroyed an alloy.

 

[sideways14a]

Strong username to post content correlation.

Goes back nearly 2 decades mate.

Yes i know RWD, yes the SX (when modded) was a lethal but i survived....
I got the 5 because i wanted those thrills at a lower speed.

 

[Akagi]

Mine are almost all people pulling out in front of me or across in front of me, nothing particularly exciting to report.

 

[bazzabear]

Does it count on a track?

At Oulton Park in my 156 GTA, approaching Druids at speed, pressed the brake pedal - and nothing happened. Turned out I had boiled the brake fluid. That was a definite brown trouser moment.

Luckily it's a pretty wide piece of tarmac, and I was able to scrub enough speed of in the turn and with downchanges that I just about stayed on the tarmac.