Green fade question

[Jim Crate]

> I was there, that's what happened.  You probably were not there.  In my
> memory, turn one is a very fast left hander coming off the front straight that
> if you have no brakes, you will hit a tire wall very fast, its not like you
> can take it anywhere close to flat out. I did not actualy see the accident due
> to my position but I heard this over the pit lane buzz.

I was not there.  Turn 1 is a very fast left-hander, and if you don't slow
down and don't turn, you will hit a tire wall head-on going pretty fast.

My point was that this shouldn't have happened on the first lap leaving the
pits.  The pit exit is *at* turn 1, *nobody* hits the brakes leaving the
pits to enter turn 1.  By the time he had gotten back around to T1, he would
have used the brakes at least 6 times, with at least 4 hard applications of
the brakes.

> If you have ever changed pads, then you must know that the first application
> of the brakes after completly retracting the caliper piston will result in an
> extremely long pedal, if you don't touch the brake while getting underway, you
> will be in for a nasty suprise if you need the brakes at the next application.
> Why don't you try it since you don't belive me.

I'm aware of the fact that you must pump the brakes a couple times after
retracting the pistons to change pads.  In fact I've been nastily surprised
by this once, when I started rolling backward down my driveway.  Nothing bad
happened that time, and I've never forgotten to pump the brakes before
releasing the car since then.

> In my opinion from driving other tracks, Sebring is not that hard on brakes as
> many others and our car did ok with stock brake pads.  It was not optimal but
> it did ok.

Just out of curiosity, what tracks have you driven that are much harder on
brakes?

> Next time you are at Sebring, then accelerate to turn one until your normal
> braking point, then simply let off the gas without hitting the brakes and tell
> us what happens, I would love to find out since it is apparently imposible to
> crash like this.

I've done this, exiting the pits at normal pit lane speeds.  In fact, I
don't even lift when exiting the pits.

On the run from T17 -> T1, I would probably wreck (or at least spin out) if
I just lifted and tried to take T1.   However, I would still *attempt* to
take the turn, which would scrub off a lot of speed, so I wouldn't hit the
tire wall head on at over 100 mph.  There is a lot of room between the
braking point and the tire wall, which would give quite a bit of time to try
something (like turning or pumping the brakes).

My point was not to say that an accident couldn't happen at T1 at Sebring.

My point was that unless he was *exiting the pit lane at over 100mph*, I
don't see how this could have happened on the first lap, and by the second,
he would have already used the brakes several times.  In fact, I don't
believe the pit lane is much more than 1/4 mile long, so in order to exit
the pits at well over 100 mph, he would have had to accelerate WOT all the
way down the pit lane.  I dunno, maybe it's been more recently than I
thought that they started using pit lane speed limits...

Jim