Lotus 15 Replica is ALIVE!!

This thing is sooo friggin cool.  Can't wait to see in person one of these days.  

DAMN are you tall though..  And this thing is stretched!!!

OK, It's dead again....

As they say, "good judgment comes from experience, but experience comes from bad judgment."

I did a basic alignment (rear end, front camber/caster/toe) on the car, and after a few days of hot laps around the ring road, I took it out on the street.
As I now have a VIN, temp plates & Insurance, this seemed a good time to cal the speedo against the GPS.

Last nice day of the year, tooling through town, getting slack jaw stares, perfect.

On the way back to the shop, I made a right hander (3rd gear) into the industrial park & thought "some throttle & this would make a nice little drift in this turn.  WRONG.  The rear end bit me, and snapped around like an old 911.  I tried to recover, and instead shot off the inside of the turn into a drainage ditch along the side of the road. 

Very little steering response as I tried to avoid the 3' dia drain pipe going under the driveway... BAAAAM!.

The Right side suspension rode up the drain pipe and shot me over the driveway & back onto the road.

A-Arms destroyed, ball joints destroyed, tie rod bent, rack bent, core support bent, shock bent, fiberglass torn. Yikes.
Was wearing a helmet, but still....

Don't know if it was just cold crap tires, if something bound up in the rear suspension, or if I am just a knucklehead.  I guess I will find out on the skidpad in the spring.  This puts me back in the time, $$ & pride departments, but at least I was able to walk away and get the fork lift to bring the carcass home...

Ohhhhhhh god.  thats terrible, Mark.  And for anyone who doubts the man, I've got his La Carrera Panamerica DVD - dude can drive.  Most certainly mechanical, right Mark?  ;)

Now I HAVE to go to your shop on the 23rd just to see the carnage.  Would it be there?  Or at the house?

might have just been the tires. when its 30ish degrees or less my azenis are TERRIBLE! one night they started spinning on me in 4th gear. they have caught me by surprise a couple times. but at least youre ok. you can always fix metal and fiberglass. 

It is at the shop now.  If the stars align, I will get it over to the fabricator who made the original A-arms before then.  We made a jig for the uppers & lowers, so re-making them should not entail an act of Congress.  You should come by in any case.

I loved this when I saw it years ago in R&T, & laughed at the idiot.  Now I am the idiot....

"Good tires" Bob mused, casually lighting a cigarette, "but certainly not great tires".