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Noble brake failure on track... Scary stuff!


fizzbitt
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Post by James (driver) on PH:

I def happened very quickly. what you have to remember is... when i am driving round at full speed i am braking as late as possible in order to get down to my turn in speed by that point. i then take a line around the corner which means at that speed i can only just make it round the corner without slipping off the track at the exit curb. We were heading into that corner at about 120+ prior to the crash and i guess an apex speed of about 60mph.

Although we were slowed going down the straight and i was cruising back we are still doing over 100mph when i hit the brakes. I didn't brake all that much earlier than normal, then realised there was no brake, then pumped the brakes a couple of times, thinking it was just brake fade (something i've had before on race cars so wasn't worried until that didn't work).

By this point (and a st load of panic) we were on the corner. So i would have needed to take off at least 40mph in next to no time and make it round a much tighter radius.

It is a bit of a blurred memory to be honest and all a bit of a blur but i think i did consider dropping it a gear and chucking it around the corner (you can see that in the vid when i grab the gear stick then leave it in neutral) but thankfully i didn't. I remember just focussing on steering and nothing else, aiming to miss Shaun and hit the field/gravel trap straight on to avoid the danger of spinning and rolling.

Thanks to my racing; crashing doesn't make me tense up as in a way i'm pretty used to it. part of the hobbie if you will. you learn to keep driving until you know there is nothing left for you to do.

Had this happened on a slip road, airfield or something like that no doubt going down the gears would help. A few people have suggested the handbrake. I'm not sure the handbrake on my Noble would have made any difference (sure others will know what i mean) but you have to be very careful doing that as if you have a good handbrake pulling it on will most likely cause the car to spin and while it would scrub speed it does mean you have no control over the car and at that speed god knows what would have happened. At lower speeds def an option i think.

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