Coming into long beach this morning I had a rather interesting ride. Let me start off by saying I love you all.
So I’m about a car’s length behind a silver Hyundai Accent, as we are about to turn onto the 710 south from the 5. The on ramp is a swooping right turn that goes up an embankment. I notice that the Accent’s rear driver side tire is extremely low on air. I’m thinking to myself “gee, I remember dad always telling me that not enough air in a tire makes it more likely it will blow out.� Almost on cue, it blew out. Now I’m not sure if the Accent just sits low or if the guy lowered it, but the whole rear more or less started scraping the ground. I see the rear bumper getting banged up really bad and I start to move to the lane to my left. The on ramp starts off as three lanes, but this all was happening as the right hand lane merges with the middle, making only two lanes. As I’m changing my position the bumper comes flying off. My initial reaction is to jam the wheel farther to the left, and the bumper misses me. Only problem is I’ve pointed the car’s nose left as the ramp turns sharply to the right going about 70 plus miles an hour.
What follows is 5% skill and 95% dumb ass luck.
I quickly whip the car back over to the right, yank the hand brake, and fuckin DRIFT the turn. I clear the Accent, which is headed rather fast for the shoulder, (good think too cuz I was about occupying about a third of his lane) release the hand brake and jam on the throttle. Due to the nature of a front wheel vehicle the car rights it self almost immediately.
Now I’ve always said that in racing, drifting is kinda counter intuitive. It has its advantages but if you use it all the time it makes you take a slightly wider arc, giving up forward motion for side motion. If your opponent is a good driver they can take advantage of it and pull a tighter turn, leaving you in the dust. In this case it let me clear the Accent while keeping control of my car.
I need a drink.
Glad to hear that your ok!