letterman7
Honorary Admin
I had a few minutes this morning to schedule in the annual inspection for my car. The weather was slightly cooler, thankfully, so out I went to my buddies shop with no issues. The road out and back is an interstate, two lanes each way with an average traffic speed of 65, even though it's rated to 55. It's heavily enforced in spots, and I know most of the hiding areas. It (the highway) also serves a couple of local hospital and fire agency's along the short eight mile stretch that I travel to my friend's shop. Just a little back history for the upcoming story...
So, after shooting the sh*t for a bit I needed to get back to my office for an business appointment later that morning. I shot down the entry ramp to the highway - and like most, it's way to short to merge properly. At the bottom of the ramp I was already doing close to 50 and caught the front end of an rescue truck out of the corner of my eye. At the end of the ramp we were neck and neck, so I hit the brakes and slid in behind him.. no worries there. I had several cars behind me on the way down the ramp, and by the time I hit the highway, there were several more behind and pulling beside and slightly behind me - which is always an irritant because with that setup (people looking at the car from the rear quarter) you don't have an out in case something happens. Which it did.
A couple hundred yards down the highway, I'm about 6 car lengths behind the rescue truck - a fire vehicle that looked like a Chevy 3500 with a rescue box (basically a square toolbox) as the bed. He's following a tractor trailer and several cars, and there are a couple of cars in the left lane slightly behind him. Suddenly he swerves towards the middle of the road - and out from his passenger side rear wheel comes a piece of tractor trailer tire - the recap - big enough to be more than half of the tread. And I have nowhere to go - the tread is bouncing all over my lane. And I'm doing over 65 already...
By the time I reached the tread I had a decision to take it either right down the middle or try to jog to the middle of the road and miss most of it, which I tried.. and the car took the hit squarely on the passenger front. The front wheel popped off the ground for a brief second.. I don't know what happened at the back because at that point I was already fighting for control and avoiding the other debris that were still peeling off the tractor trailer ahead of everyone. I found an opening and slid into the left lane and slowed down to see if the tread had got caught up somewhere or tore a brake line off the front. Everything seemed fine control-wise, so what else could I do? I continued back home to drop the car off.
I parked the car and got out to survey the damage... and was amazed to see what could have been a bad break any other way. The tread had caught the undertray right at the left front intake and slid along the side of the tray in front of the front wheel. There is paint missing at the point of impact, and a heavy scrape along the side. I just came in from compounding the quarter and got most of the rubber off, even though there is still a scrape mark that probably won't come out. But the fiberglass held together... one more testament to the build quality of the early cars and the thickness of the fiberglass.
So, after shooting the sh*t for a bit I needed to get back to my office for an business appointment later that morning. I shot down the entry ramp to the highway - and like most, it's way to short to merge properly. At the bottom of the ramp I was already doing close to 50 and caught the front end of an rescue truck out of the corner of my eye. At the end of the ramp we were neck and neck, so I hit the brakes and slid in behind him.. no worries there. I had several cars behind me on the way down the ramp, and by the time I hit the highway, there were several more behind and pulling beside and slightly behind me - which is always an irritant because with that setup (people looking at the car from the rear quarter) you don't have an out in case something happens. Which it did.
A couple hundred yards down the highway, I'm about 6 car lengths behind the rescue truck - a fire vehicle that looked like a Chevy 3500 with a rescue box (basically a square toolbox) as the bed. He's following a tractor trailer and several cars, and there are a couple of cars in the left lane slightly behind him. Suddenly he swerves towards the middle of the road - and out from his passenger side rear wheel comes a piece of tractor trailer tire - the recap - big enough to be more than half of the tread. And I have nowhere to go - the tread is bouncing all over my lane. And I'm doing over 65 already...
By the time I reached the tread I had a decision to take it either right down the middle or try to jog to the middle of the road and miss most of it, which I tried.. and the car took the hit squarely on the passenger front. The front wheel popped off the ground for a brief second.. I don't know what happened at the back because at that point I was already fighting for control and avoiding the other debris that were still peeling off the tractor trailer ahead of everyone. I found an opening and slid into the left lane and slowed down to see if the tread had got caught up somewhere or tore a brake line off the front. Everything seemed fine control-wise, so what else could I do? I continued back home to drop the car off.
I parked the car and got out to survey the damage... and was amazed to see what could have been a bad break any other way. The tread had caught the undertray right at the left front intake and slid along the side of the tray in front of the front wheel. There is paint missing at the point of impact, and a heavy scrape along the side. I just came in from compounding the quarter and got most of the rubber off, even though there is still a scrape mark that probably won't come out. But the fiberglass held together... one more testament to the build quality of the early cars and the thickness of the fiberglass.