Monday, 03 May 2010 10:47

During Weldborough, the stage before Pyengana, the Mustang hit a dip in the road very heavily, and the front of the car felt squirmy - almost like a flat tyre. At the end of the stage I looked at the tyres on the front. They look inflated and nothing appeared wrong. Not having much time to the next stage (only 2km apart) we continued on.

At the start of Pyengana the car felt fine, but getting towards the end (about 3 corners before the off) the car began to feel squirmy again. As we approached the corner where we came off, I braked as usual and then went to turn left, but the car continued straight ahead and accelerated quickly. I quickly realised we were obviously not going to make the corner, so I steered straight off the road, as frontal is better than side impact. We could also maintain some control while travelling forward, rather than simply sliding sideways. The rest of the story is told by the photos!

Upon inspection of the car after the accident, the left front the tyre had been cut on the inside and there was some damage to the rim. I am yet to fully inspect the right tyre but they both looked 'melted' in the tread - very shiny and the tread grooves were full of rubber. This is normally found on the race track when you pick up rubber off the track. It is very strange, and I think the tyre pressures may have been low, causing the tyres to overheat and lost their grip.

Anyway, we will have a closer look when the car returns (we couldn't get it on the boat any earlier than its scheduled Tuesday return trip) and see if we can figure out any other potential causes or contributing factors. Thanks again for all your support, interest and concern,

Craig.