Back from the Dragon

And before you all ask, yes, the driver’s fine. Another MINI takes one for the team.

Way Motor Works is trying to buy the car from insurance now. He might gets the rims. Thanks Gabe for posting it and thank you blalor for updating the news. I am the one who rolled down the mountain…

Thanks to all the folks who stopped at the accident scene to help out and especially to the couple in the Hot Orange convertible who drove to the nearest pay-phone to call 911 and to the guys from Pittsburgh who braved 80 feet of Poison Ivy to help Henry out of the wreck! The local deputy told us someone lost his life in the same spot two years ago. She also said the locals hate the car clubs disturbing the peace and they will dump oil and glass on select curves. Be careful out there – The Dragon bites back!

She also said the locals hate the car clubs disturbing the peace and they will dump oil and glass on select curves

Hrm. I bet they like the money we dump into their economy just fine. I bet a manslaughter conviction would put a stop to that activity, however. Hope it doesn’t come to that.

Wow Henry, that must have been quite the ride.

Does anybody else think the roof caved in a bit too much? It did to me. I suppose a non sunroof would have done better.

Thanks RichSwan for taking me to the hospital and riding me home. And thanks Drew from Pittsburgh got me out from the car. Also the couple in the Hot Orange convertible MINI, thank you for calling the police. I appreciated everyone’s help and warm care. THANK YOU ALL!

WOW………………

Henry, you are one lucky person. Gotta ask, did all the airbags deploy, including the side units?

Charlie

> 10,000 miles in how many months? I got my car August ‘04 and I’m just over 19,000 miles now – you obviously take way more road trips than I do.

I hit 19,000 last week and 20,000 5 days later. That’s in a shade under 12 months. Might need to spring for that extended warranty… :-)

Rookies ;)

I think I’ll be hitting 120K this week (since March ’03).

Killer pics! Glad to hear nobody was hurt. I’m also guessing there wasn’t a passenger in that MINI when it rolled down the mountain?

It’s hard to live outside the laws of physics, and it doesn’t take much to end up dead in a ditch, so Henry is the luckiest motorer alive right now. Glad he wasn’t in a vert, it might not have had such a happy ending.

Like the cell phone shots, Gabe, they have spontenaity! Other than the cliff diver, it looks like a fun time all around. Glad you kept the rubber side down, Gabe!

Thanks to Dave for keeping things under control at Motoringfile Command Central while the boss was off screwing around – job well done!

                 BCNU,
                Rob in Dago

henry, so sorry to hear about your accident. i’m glad your okay. i can sort of sympathize with you, i wrecked at last years dragon, but unlike you, i didn’t even make it down there. my wreck was due to construction debris on I75 near the Michigan-Ohio border. i know your pain, it’s a horrible way to spend your vacation. hope everything works out for the best.

Good question Charlie.

I am almost 100% positive that the reason the airbags didn’t go off is because the crash was of a relatively long timespan compared to a “normal” crash. It was probably more a series of multiple smaller crashes than one larger crash. Your car has about 0.01 seconds or so to detect if you’re in a crash or not, and if it shoudl deploy the airbags. This is based usually on an acceleration measurement either at several locations on the car or frequently now through the airbag control module of the vehicle which is obviously mounted at one location within the vehicle.

Henry did not have one major accident and come to a stop, he had a lot of relatively smaller (yes, I know that sounds crazy to say smaller) crashes before he came to a stop. He went through a lot of woods and down a hill before he coming to rest. While a car running into a fixed object usually stops in about 1/10 to 1/8 of a second, his crash was probably a much longer duration… I’d have to guess well over a second in duration. Compared to him sliding into a tree and coming to a stop, his acceleration was much, much less… so anyway, I’d nearly guess that was why they did not deploy.

Fortunately, for all of us, this is probably why he was also able to get out of his car relatively unscathed. It looks very dramatic, just like an F1 car hitting a wall and rolling down the straight, but you almost always want lots of smaller impacts rather than one huge impact.

Sorry Henry for all of us making your loss a lesson for all of us, obviously we’re all glad you’re OK…

Thank you all again for the comments. I am glad my lost could be a lesson for all of you. I am also glad the beer in my trunk was fine for the next day party. ^_^

Edge—it wasn’t relating to the alcohol at all.

Glad you’re OK. I was at the Dragon also this year. Could have happened to anyone. There is such a fine line between normal driving and a serious accident there. It’s a blast to drive, improves your skills, but that car could have easily belonged to me or anyone. Makes me shudder at how messed up I might have been with the top down on my MCSC.

Henry, Blalor… that’s why I posted what I did… I had adjusted my thinking – and I’m very relieved to hear the truth. I will surely be correcting anyone else that made the same assumption!

And thanks also for correcting the location – I was told (you know how second-hand info is) that it was on 28 departing FV towards CoT, not the other way around.

Henry – I just hope that now that you’re OK… that you will be able to get another MINI before too long!

Yucca… any pics of the tree with the MINI pieces added? I hope the bikers don’t pull them down before next year… the “Tree of Shame” shouldn’t be only for bikers!

Could have been a MCSC …….. now that would have hurt some… makes ya think.

Bad side of this accident is, the more of these type things that happen the more regulations and prevention measures will be demanded by the local folks.

It’s also the bad side of the internet. I have a twisty road I have been driving since high school, 1965, it’s now listed on a site. Then [1965 - 86] it was open except for the infrequent CHP, now you had better be running a detector and have luck on your side! So far I have had both but it’s now a weekday only fun road.

This was not a condemnation of anyone just noting how things change. It can also bring up some dreaded legal issues with the Dragon promoters.

My Thoughts……. :¬)

LTZMTOR, I almost blew beer out my nose. Henry, from now on you’re known as “George”. Sing it with me, people:

George, George, George of the Dragon strong as he can be George, George, George of the Dragon **WATCH OUT FOR THAT TREE!**

blalor… that’s an odd hobby. WTF are you talking about?

I have kids in their 30′s so George was a must back then.

Working the doors for both the Welcome and Farewell dinners I had to make sure I gave Gabe a hard time. Although he got off easy compared to Mike from Aesthetic Creations, we at DCMM got him good at Sweetwater Barbeque in Robbinsville.

Overall I had a great time (even if I was running around alot making sure things went off without a hitch).

I didn’t make the trip this time but I enjoyed the photos. I was happy to hear that Henry walked away from that crash, but I can’t believe the air bags didn’t deploy. That’s kind of scary. If Henry had been injured it would have been a good lawsuit for some lawyer.