This story strikes very close to home for me...
Cobra Airlines...
Driver/Pilot - Randy V
Car/Plane - Open Cockpit Shelby Cobra replica running Super Production class.
Having been airborne in my Cobra racecar - I cannot begin to tell you how traumatic it was to my psyche and confidence as a driver. I had nightmares for years following that crash even though I forced myself back into the seat a month or so later to race the car again and re-establish its pedigree as a champion and me as a driver. The Cobra was sold and I never got back into an open cockpit car again.
Here’s the story that you knew would accompany my preface::
It was the spring of 2006. I was running a NASA race at BIR (Brainerd International Raceway) on the original track configuration.
The front straightaway was roughly 4800’ long. The Cobra entered that straight at roughly 80mph and then hammer time. Turn 1 was a long-right sweeper that we were able to take flat out. GPS Data Acquisition had our speed at 154mph. I turned the car to the apex of T1 like I had done hundreds of times. Coming off the apex, I could hear my aluminum splitter extension scraping on the track as I was drifting off the apex.
Our tires were up to temp, the car was “perfect” and I figured the splitter would just self-clearance by grinding off the excess..
We were on target for our fastest lap of the qualifying session.
Still drifting and just about to the point where the drift would arrest itself when suddenly at about 18” from the left edge of the track - the splitter decided to jettison itself. The left front wheel ran over the aluminum strip and lost traction.
We were just under 150mph as we shot off the track into the soft sandy field (full of gopher mounds) and I knew the car would roll if I could not keep it straight.
I was in for a ride I will never forget.
I struggled to keep the car straight when suddenly I was surprised by a rise in the terrain which was an old access road. I hit that road at right angle to it and it became my launching pad.
D-A system had me at 147mph when we went airborne.
He went nose high and the trees of the forest ahead of me disappeared and all I could see was blue sky and all I heard was TOTAL silence...
The car flew just under 100’ until we slammed back down tail first and bounced back into the air for part-2 of our flight. 48’ that time and landed flat... Still doing 90mph the sounds were harsh and frightening as I fought to keep him straight although to go straight meant hitting a marshy swamp, and then the forest.
I managed somehow (thanks God) to keep it straight. The car skipped like a flat stone over the swamp and the blasted into the first big tree.
We went from 70mph to zero in 23”. That was 23” of radiator, oil cooler and fiberglass body and steel supports that collapsed while absorbing what it could of the impact. The tree did not move with the 2500# impact of my racecar and I.
My glasses came off my face and one of the bows was in my mouth.
Ears ringing and somewhat in a daze, I managed to figure out I was still alive and was in my racecar.
I quickly realized that my Bell Helmet, HANS Device and Pyrotech Harness saved my life. The harness was so tight at the beginning of my session that I could barely tuck in the loose ends of the harness to keep them from flapping in my face.. It had stretched to the point where I could literally slip them off my shoulders.
While it seemed like an eternity, I was probably standing alongside my crushed and smoking racer in less than 15 seconds.
I thanked God for allowing me to be one of a handful of people to have ever flown and crashed a Cobra and lived..
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The damage to the chassis was substantial, but repairable.. The steering wheel was a write-off. Even the half full fuel cell in the back of the car survived although it had strained through its mounts and formed itself around the differential.. Fiberglass has a really good memory (springs back) and photos don’t even come close to telling the story that lurked underneath..
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