Gordon Jones

robjacobsen

robjacobsen

The Pros From Dover
Gordon was instructing yesterday at the Cascade school when the Subaru WRX he was riding in had a big incident on the back straight at PIR. The car turned right into the concrete barrier across from the turn 9 station, hitting the wall hard enough to deploy the air bags. It then slide back across the track to impact the armco barrier on the other side of the track, then ending up in back on the edge of the track at the Optimist's Parking Lot. The entire front of the car was heavily damaged. Both student and instructor walked away, but the student was transported for a precautionary check at the hospital. Word later in the day was the had a couple of possible fractures. Gordon was plenty sore after the impact, but did not go to the hospital. With all that said, How are you feeling Gordon?
 
Was it a school group, or HPDE ride-along?

Things have changed since I started hanging around this game. But I'm pretty sure that hitting walls is still not part of the training curricullum. T9-T10, what is that... 200 yds?

Gordon forwarded some more of his 'pretty pictures of the world' email collection last night, so at least we know that his fingers are still working.
 
Wow - good to hear that both walked away relatively unharmed (nothing confirmed), that's quite the slide.. a tire go down or weird brake blowout? I imagine he was at speed when it contacted the wall.
 
Just a quick reminder, if it should be necessary, that it's generally not a good idea to post pictures of an event like this.

As for the incident itself, it's my understanding that the driver broke his sternum but is at home, and Gordon is also home but sore all over. The car really did slide for something like 200 yards.
 
It was group 2 which is the beginners group. Adam was in that group but had paddocked with a minor mechanical issue just before the incident. He and Russ were working on the car when they could hear the sound of the impacts on the back straight. Moments later, Adam and Russ had put on their Safety hats and were out helping clean up the debris field left behind, while Rooster and I dealt with the wreck. I would guess that the distance covered from initial impact to final stop was easily 200 yards. Quite a mess. My thanks go out to the students and instructors who slowed and moved out of the way so the Safety team could get there as quickly as possible. With the soggy ground conditions, I felt it was necessary to stay on pavement, which meant doing most of a lap to get to the scene.
 
i was in another car on track from first skid mark to final stop could be a full 1/4 mile. also the 1st contact with the wall moved the wall almost 2 feet. i was very surprised how fast all the bits and parts were picked up and track cleared for the rest of the students. after that all the really fast cars in the 2 school groups seemed to take more care on the back stretch dont know about the 2 hpde groups since i was not on track with them
 
I'm sore! First I want to thank everyone for their phone calls and coments regarding concern for my well being. My sternum is very sore as is my left kidney area. Also my neck is stiff on the left side. We were at full throttle and coming up on another car when the student realized that we were running out of passing room. What happened next was the result of too much speed and not enough experience. When he lifted, he didn't correct with the wheel and the front end had too much traction pointing the wrong direction. The car snapped right into the wall so fast that I barely had time to say NO. The impact deployed the airbags and destroyed the right front of the car. With the aribags in our face we couldn't see where we were going.
The impact with the guard rail on the left front of the car almost felt as bad as the first one. I don't know about the driver but by then I hoping the ride would stop without further hits. Luckily we slid back out to the track. That airbag dust tastes terrible.
G
 
If you draw a line from T9 directly across to the wall, The impact was about 40 feet towards turn 10, the car came to a stop on the left at the east side of the asphalt towards T11.

Gordon I am glad that you are feeling better, move slow, lots of hot tub and 2 brandy and you be fine. Thank care my friend.
 
Gorden, I'm Glad you and the driver didn't get hurt too bad. You sure looked sore when you climbed out of the car that drove you back to the pits. I was the next group out and was in car waiting to get let go.

Thank-you Safety Crew!!!
 
Gordon - good to hear from you and glad you are doing ok thus far. Still can't believe where he hit the wall until I read his post over on NASIOC. Sounded like a ton of power (400+) and looked like stock suspension/tires (brakes?). Yikes!



[Admin: Link to pictures removed.]
 
@Steve,
The pictures that I referred to were of some city built by some monks into some mountain in China someplace. Others have been super caves, dumb jokes and the like.
 
After I heard the reports about the driver and had seen you driving out of the track, I was wishing that you had gone to the hospital too to be checked out. Just an old worry wary, that's me.




gordon_jones said:
I'm sore! First I want to thank everyone for their phone calls and coments regarding concern for my well being. My sternum is very sore as is my left kidney area. Also my neck is stiff on the left side. We were at full throttle and coming up on another car when the student realized that we were running out of passing room. What happened next was the result of too much speed and not enough experience. When he lifted, he didn't correct with the wheel and the front end had too much traction pointing the wrong direction. The car snapped right into the wall so fast that I barely had time to say NO. The impact deployed the airbags and destroyed the right front of the car. With the aribags in our face we couldn't see where we were going.
The impact with the guard rail on the left front of the car almost felt as bad as the first one. I don't know about the driver but by then I hoping the ride would stop without further hits. Luckily we slid back out to the track. That airbag dust tastes terrible.
G
Click to expand...
 
Gordon
I read the title of this thread and a cold chill ran down my spine.
I'm so glad to hear that you're okay, if not a little banged up.
Our chosen vice is one of few that can have mortal consequences.
Ernest Hemingway is credited with the following quote,
"There are only three real sports,
mountain climbing, bull fighting and automobile racing.
Everything else is merely a game."
Take it easy, if it lets you.
I hope to see you at Spokane or ORP.
 
Last edited:
Ken Killam said:
@Steve,
The pictures that I referred to were of some city built by some monks into some mountain in China someplace. Others have been super caves, dumb jokes and the like.
Click to expand...

It was just a general reminder to people in the unlikely event that someone wanted to post pictures of the crash.
 
To stay on topic they would have to be BMW crash pictures. And if I look around my own stash, I'll bet I can find a few. Hmmmm...
 
This is mine from several years ago:

racing.jpg
 
The worst part of it was, that was only a portion of the damage. The only panel that was untouched was the roof. (Fun day at the track? For a while...)
 
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