Wrecked in the mountains. say hi to the mountain side

[Rallyspec]

Well as it would go. I installed my DMS 50's and went to the woods. These things are uncanning. The stability was great. Going 80mph and they were handling like a champ. everything was good up hill. The best i have driven and the worst. After an amazing uphill run through the woods. i decided to tinker back downhill. i was going about 50 and i was taking this little turn. nothing big at all. My right wheels slid on some mud which then pushed me over to my right towards a 4 foot embankment accompanied by a mountainside. I pushed my brakes, they locked up, i didnt move the wheel and and somehow spun me to the left directly at the wall. then. bam, hopped the gap. the left side hits the wall, next was the right and then it spins me around and blows out my right rear tire after striking the wall and tipping a litte. yea. so fun. front bumper is split in half, radiator is pushed upwards, hood moved skyward a little because the radiator moved it. one hella 4000 cracked to pecies. lost foglight covers, 1 mudflap ripped off. side skirt hanging off with glee. one blown out tire, headlights pushed back a little(very minimal). My 3/16th skid plate is toast. But may have saved my car. It has one of the biggest dents in it i have seen. So i am a little sad but yet happy. happy to be alive and glad my car didnt spin to the right and off the canyon.
It turns out that i will have no more roll cage fabbed into my car. Instead ill spend that money to fix my car and not claim it on my insurance. This made me realize that i dont have enough money to compete this year. Its a bitch. but i am going to play it smart. when i have enough to buy body parts when needed i will compete. i am only 22 and a job that can support me and others fine but not the rally sport for now. it is an expensive sport. The wreck brought me to reality. I told myself i wasnt going to push it anymore until i threw on some rally tires. Oh well. it was fun and dont regret what i did. it will save me money in the long run. Greatful i am alive

Aaron
Oh by the way. all my body panels came out unscathed.

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[AWDTurboNut]

Glad you are ok. You make an excellent point however about rallying. Many people want to jump right in with the most exotic and fastest machines without the budget to back them.

I've never rallyed, but I would be looking for the most disposable and cheap class of car I could find to start out with. Something that you can find loads of parts for in the scrap yards aint a bad idea.

[EnterTheDragon]

**** aaron that sucks man, the most important fact though, is that you are OK!, i just saw you the other day looking all badass in your sexy car.....glad you're doing alright

kevin

[CosmoTheCat]

Bummer man. That would explain why you didn't call though.

Take it easy and put that car back together again.

What's it that they say on Hot Rod TV? Don't crush 'em, restore 'em?

[aspera]

From one Aaron to another, glad to hear your OK. Your post sounded pretty scary until I was about half way through.

Are the DMS 50s OK? Those things aren't cheap. AMHIK.
I can't believe you wasted a 3/16th skidplate! Please post pictures of the skidplate.

[bsquare]

Time to upgrade to the 3" ablative armor underbody protection. Just blast your way through!

[cfwdfw]

Hey Aaron,

Very glad you are ok! That's the most important thing!

You say your brakes locked up .... dont you have ABS ? ... and do you know if they really locked up or just felt like it? On a slick surface once you start sliding I can see where brakes with or without ABS would likely not help much ... whew ... just thinking about your experience ... one heck of an undesireable shot of adrenaline ... again ... very grateful the car and your "pride" are the only things that need patching up!

take care

Charlie

[Rallyspec]

oddly enough. yes i do have my abs. but there was no pulsing, no chatter. just smooth going right into the wall. well after further investigation i checked my blown out tire and what i thought happened did happen. two possibilities why i wrecked. #1. might be i hit mud and was pushed into the gravel. and the second one a high possibility. the corner i took wasnt even a corner, barely. i have taken it many times before and nothing wrong. i threw on my dms. and realized my tires were almost rubbing the perches. i guess the previous owner bought to wide of a tire(bulging out past the rim). i said well. i guess ill need new tires but must be careful . so i said i am only going to see how these feel off road, but then ill come back. i didnt come back soon and was too much fun. #2. My spring perch rubbed up on my tire to much or to hard and tore a hole in it which then made me lose control. I looked at my spring perch this morning and sure enough. the black was wore off to silver and i had a tear from my perch in my tire.
Who knows. but my car fared out well and so did i.

[CosmoTheCat]

That still sucks. Are you running 225/50r16s? I couldn't get SP5000s to bolt up in that size with the stock gear.

[Rallyspec]

I checked my tires today and they are 205 55. stock size. but obviously you cant have stock with the struts. they rub. any suggestions. I guess rally suspensions is supposes to go with rally tires. hmm. novel thought. Any suggestion for non rally tires.

[Dave_Clark]

Perhaps you had the rear camber washers in the wrong way? There should be enough clearance with stock size tires. Let me know if you need different camber washers.

I'm sorry to hear that you damaged your car but look at this from the other side and let it be a lesson to you and others. It's foolish to go racing around on gravel roads with street tires. No grip! Especially in mud. And rally shocks and other equipment need a little more careful setup to work the best than just throwing them on the car. But it sounds like you've begun to learn about the true costs of rallying from this project already, which is a good thing. Lord knows I had already racked up some pretty good credit card bills doing this when I was about your age.

From one Aaron to another Aaron to another Aaron... I'm glad to hear you're OK.

Motorsports in general are expensive. Body dents and dings, oopsies, tires, general maintenance...All cost money.

Also is this your daily driver as well? Might think about the second car thing.

A

[Rallyspec]

yea. thats what i have been hearing. must be something with the aarons. you wreck yours? yea it is my daily driver. now it has character. carries a smile with a few cracked teeth and a broken foot and rib. oh well. just nerving thats all. ill calm down i suppose. although it was a blast driving upwards it was amazing.

happy it happened. Mr Forest told me to come back to reality. As homage for the advice i left a few peices of my car for him. thanked him and trugged home.

haha

Aaron

[Austin]

Aaron - Glad you're okay man! Live and learn, eh?

LMAO at bsquare.

[Rallyspec]

Here is the lesson. Dont rally with stock tires.

thats the lesson for everyone

Hmm i have always wondered why they made rally tires. i just pieced it together

[CosmoTheCat]

Originally posted by Rallyspec
Here is the lesson. Dont rally with stock tires.

thats the lesson for everyone

Hmm i have always wondered why they made rally tires. i just pieced it together

Like I said in a thread in General:

Why don't people complain about SOA not putting rally tires on the Impreza? Obviously it's supposed to be a rally car, they should have rally tires that hold up to the abuse and that have the traction you need? Can we sue SOA for putting improper tires on the car?

(and just in case you don't know me well enough, I'm being totally facetious and I'm making fun of all of the people who bash the RE92 because it doesn't stick like a Z-rated summer tire)

[Rallyspec]

actually re92's arent that bad for stock. pretty expensive but they are better than some.
I dont have RE92's i have a set of bf goodrish comp TA VR4's . But thats stock. stock enough. definately not a rally tire.


To clarify myself. Dont rally on any tire thats not a rally tire

[Dustin]

I was out with a friend in his Rabbit GTi Saturday night and we ended up in a big ditch. The car was nearly on its side(passenger side) with the drivers side tires sticking up just past the edge of the road. We had a stump to keep us from going all the way over, and the Roll bar saved the car so that it was driveable. A Ford Ranger showed up 5 minutes after the off, followed by an F150 that pulled us out. The car ended up with a huge dent on the passenger side quarter panel, a blown out window, and possibly a bent rear beam.

We were able to laugh about this. We weren't hurt. We were slowing from about 40mph going around a fairly wide corner, and the impact wasn't to hard. The car is also easily replaceable, which made it not too much of a big deal. We also knew this was going to happen at some point.

You might think about going with something a little more disposable. We all know that Imprezas are great cars for rallying, but they aren't cheap to setup for rallying. No car is cheap to setup properly, but some are cheaper than others.

Take it easy, and I hope you get your car fixed soon.

Dustin B

[Subie Gal]

oh aaron!! nooo....

sigh....

i am GLAD you are ok!
and sounds like you learned a thing or 2...

let me know if there's anything i can do for you.
...just really glad you are ok!!!!
learn from it and move on....

do you have enough money to become a pro rally co driver ???
i'm still looking... hehehee

take care and beep me if u need me!
jamie
www.subiegal.com