A new video detailing the demise of a C8 Corvette Z06 on track offers a startling example of just how far safety equipment has come. The driver was near the end of a lap and pushing the car hard before something derailed his day and totaled the car. What’s amazing is that he walked away despite multiple 5+ G impacts.
Video and data recorders are commonplace on sports cars like the Corvette Z06 and that’s where the majority of this video comes from. In it, we see the coupe make a hard right turn at just above highway speeds before it loses control and smashes into a wall at Virginia International Raceway.
According to the poster, the driver experienced 8.47 Gs during the initial impact with the barrier at the front of the car. When the car spun around it hit the same rail again and this time exerted 5.5 Gs of force on the driver. Those are huge figures but the crash structure of the Corvette did its job and allowed him to walk away.
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What caused the crash is unclear. In the on-board video footage, we see the throttle is pegged long before the apex of the turn and then the car shifts gears near the exit. It’s possible that the weight shift caused a slight loss of traction at the rear tires which then slid into the dirt slightly before the crash.
According to the poster, the driver turned in and tried to apply throttle but “couldn’t get throttle so he opened the steering wheel just to get a little bit more power off of traction control and then when he came back in he had to close the angle… and as soon as it went off it cut the tire.”
This same Corvette is the one SteelAnkles featured two weeks ago dubbing it the “World’s Fastest C8 Z06 at VIR” with a time of 1:58.92. In that same video, we see this same turn but the driver attacks it very differently. Instead of being at full throttle as early as we see in the crash video, the driver feathers the go pedal until the apex of the turn and then powers out drama-free.
Sometimes the pursuit of fast lap times gets one a record and other times it gets them a totaled car. We’re just happy that the driver walked away without significant injury.