Green fade question

[Jim Crate]

>From http://www.sentra.net/tech/garage/brakes.shtml :

> I witnessed a serious racing accident caused by this where the driver was
> nearly killed. It was the 12 hours of Sebring and we drove under a yellow
> for almost one hour while they cut the poor guy out of his Prelude. The car
> had just pitted, the crew had changed pads and a new driver was put in the
> car. In a red mist the driver tore out of the pits and jammed down the pit
> road and front strait. He did not touch the brake pedal until turn one when
> he discovered that the pedal went to the floor. The Prelude hit the tire
> wall head on at well over 100 mph. The car was very totaled and the driver
> suffered serious leg, arm, head and internal injuries.

http://www.the-crates.net/cars/images/misc/sebring_map_s.jpg

While an accident may have happened, it surely did not happen this way.  As
you can see from the track map, the pit exit is *at* turn 1, and it's not
likely someone was exiting the pits at over 100mph.

For a Prelude to hit the tire wall at T1 head on at over 100 mph, it would
have had to suffer total brake *and* steering failure, or a really dumb
driver.  T1 is very wide and very fast, and even with brake failure, slower
racecars like a Prelude should turn in and either understeer or spin, which
will scrub off a lot of speed.

Also, Sebring is pretty hard on brakes, unlike what was mentioned elsewhere
in the article, there are 4 sections with very hard braking from well over
100, and 2 more with somewhat hard braking but not as much speed to scrub
off.  Definitely not somewhere I'd want to run anything resembling stock
brake pads, or even aggressive street pads.

Also, while I've been unable to find past entry lists, I find it strange
that they used to run slow showroom-stock type cars (re: the SE-R racing
story where they used stock brakes in the 12-hour race) with the super-fast
prototypes.  Closing speeds must have ranged from 50-150 mph!  Nowadays, the
prototype drivers complaining about traffic only have to deal with the likes
of the GT3 Porsches!

Jim Crate
only 250+ miles at Sebring, what do I know?