Mazda Crashes Into Corvette at Thunderhill Raceway

The crew from Corvetteonline found this video showing a wild bump on camera between a Mazda MX-5 and a Corvette C5 racer at Thunderhill Raceway Park in northern California.

In the video, the C5 pours on the juice on a long straightaway and zips past the Mazda before a left turn, but then suddenly slows down drastically on the next left turn because, he said later, he eyeballed a yellow flag “displayed by a corner worker for an off-track car ahead.”

Unfortunately, the MX5 driver was right behind the Corvette and couldn’t apply his brakes quickly enough, nipping the C5’s right bumper in the process. The contact sent the Mazda soaring into the air, balancing momentarily on its right two wheels and then falling back down on all fours before coming to a stop off the track.

Bill Brinkop the driver of the Corvette in the video, posted this update on the Corvette Forum explaining the racing incident:

Hi guys, I just had a new wrap done on my ST2 car so it was bound to have some contact this weekend.

There was a waving yellow flag in T11 that you can’t see in the video. I was trying not to pass the legends car under yellow. In the split second that I decided to not pass that slow legends car I didn’t realize he must have also been disabled and going so slowly. The yellow was for a GT40 that had spun on the exit of the turn.

Sucks for both me and the miata guy. Luckily I only broke a rear spindle and nothing else except for body damage. What sucks is I just got the car wrapped. Both the other driver (who is my friend) and I are fine. Let’s not turn this into a big forum ?you should have done this or that? session please. After 5 years of racing and dozens of close calls these things will happen sooner or later. Thanks!

Bill. 

BTW, this weekend was going quite well up until that point. I qualified pole in the SU class and was winning a close race holding off some fast cars. One split second of a bad decision made the day not so good. Oh well, live and learn.

Source:
CorvetteOnline.com 

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