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This brings us full circle to where we began our story. Towards the end of the day in Session 4 the Professional Awesome Evo VII would head out and set their fastest time of the weekend and break their previous personal best. Dan clicked off a 1:31.707 in the Limited AWD class and was feeling good heading in to the 5th session of the day. As Dan continued to push harder he carried more speed in to turn one than before and as he apexed and hit the curbing he dipped 2 and met some dirt that put the car in to a spin. As he began to correct he slid across the track and smashed the passenger side in to the concrete barrier. No tire wall or gravel trap, just grass and several tons of material to greet the Evo. We were all worried about Dan as medical tended to him and once we knew he was OK the reality of what had just happened had set in. In looking over the chassis the car is no more. The cage and safety contrivances did their job to save Dan, but the car was not so lucky.
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| Here you can see the impact area. I was surprised that the rear wing chassis mount was still intact given the area of impact. You can also see the front wheel toed out due to a severed lower control arm. |
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| And this is the reason cage builders reinforce shock towers. In this case the impact pushed the unibody inward against the box causing this damage. Despite the fact that the cage worked to save Dan and worked quite well, Professional Awesome still has some areas they want to improve on in their next build. |
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| As we look further in the car we see how the floor pan is deformed from the impact. This goes to show how the unibody moves around the cage. In addition to this area moving the floor pan also deformed further forward from the impact. |
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| I was quite surprised to see the tunnel twisted in this way. Clearly the unibody attenuated the impact through shifting around the rigidity of the cage. This leads us to our next point which is seat to cage integration. In this crash the driver's seat came loose from the unibody as the floor deformed. Luckily the Sparco seat kept Dan in one piece. You can rest assured the seat will be integrated in the next cage they build. We saw the same thing happen in the Pikes Peak Evo crash. |
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| Normally the PF01 logo is on the outside of the wheel. This picture just goes to show how hard the rear wheel contacted the wall. In looking at the video it appears the impact speed was in the 65 MPH range after going off track at around 90 MPH. |
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| This just goes to show you the spirit of the Professional Awesome Team. This young fan walked up and asked if there were any parts the driver could sign and give him. He walked away with a Daniel O'Donnell signed genuine Evo VII tail light. I sure hope he appreciates it and if it winds up on eBay I will personally find this young man. Keep an eye out as Professional Awesome plans to part with some of the damaged car parts in a donation type format to assist with the funding of their new build. |
