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What Happens If You Blow A Tire At 217 MPH?
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coupeZ600
09/01/09

In reply to What Happens If You Blow A Tire At 217 MPH?
I know a lot more about Big Trucks than cars, but here's the three rules of blow-outs.

1) Trailer tire blow-out. Steering wheel shakes a bit, big cloud in mirror, cars behind you swerve humorously. Action Required: Drive a bit, pull over in a nice, wide, safe place. Make sure no air-lines got ripped, continue on to Truck-Stop somewhere near (+/-) the speed-limit

2) Drive tire blow-out. Steering wheel shakes a lot. Mirror may or may not have been removed by rubber traveling at trebuchet-like centrifugal force. Action Required: Stab Brake and Down-shift like you mean it, because this loads the Steer-axle therefore taking the load off the Drive-axle(s) and allows the tire to destroy itself while minimizing the damage to the vehicle, because you need to stop NOW!

3) Steer tire blow-out. (Well, my friend, this is where it gets western. There's whole pages in the USDOT (and I assume everywhere else) rulebook on what, where, when, why, and how you can put a tire/wheel on the steer axle, for good reason. In 25+ years of driving, I've had one steer axle blow-out, and it was terrifying) Steering wheel wants to throw you out the F@ Fender's probably gone by now, off to cut belts and hoses and cables, pieces of tire are trying to stab a hole in the floor of the cab to finish you off, stuff flying everywhere. Action Required/">#%ing WINDOW! Fender's probably gone by now, off to cut belts and hoses and cables, pieces of tire are trying to stab a hole in the floor of the cab to finish you off, stuff flying everywhere. Action Required: Mash the throttle to the floor, look for a really wide, safe place, preferably dirt, to ease slowly into while the tire is trying to kill your truck, because this is going to be your new home for quite some time. Under NO circumstance should you back out of it or worse, hit the brakes, because that will LOAD the front axle, and when that wheel makes contact with the pavement, it causes the worst kind of Jack-Knife, where the cab gets rolled up in a little ball as the trailer/load runs it over.

I would have done the same thing as this guy did, but almost certainly not as well.
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Leeeeena a Jalopchick promoted this comment Edited by coupeZ600 at 09/01/09 3:16 AM coupeZ600 was starred coupeZ600 was unstarred

toasteroven
08/31/09

In reply to What Happens If You Blow A Tire At 217 MPH?
He was all over the road. And I agree with Bo; shoulda kept both hands on the wheel.
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HoonThatFerrari promoted this comment toasteroven was starred toasteroven was unstarred

HoonThatFerrari
09/01/09

@toasteroven: Yeppers, I agree, as well. No doubt he's done shitloads more high-speed driving than I have, but I think I would've tried to just maintain control & let it lose momentum naturally.
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Edited by HoonThatFerrari at 09/01/09 1:38 AM HoonThatFerrari was starred HoonThatFerrari was unstarred

Fat Tire
08/31/09

In reply to What Happens If You Blow A Tire At 217 MPH?
I would LOVE to know what the driver was saying when they first ran up to him after the crash.
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HoonThatFerrari promoted this comment Fat Tire was starred Fat Tire was unstarred

HoonThatFerrari
09/01/09

@Fat Tire: I think it was something along the lines of: "HOLYFUCKINGSHITMANTHISTHINGJUS...
SHITTINGMYPANTSYOUKNOWANDITRIE...
SLOWITDOWNBUTBITCHCGOTTHEBETTE......"
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Edited by HoonThatFerrari at 09/01/09 1:43 AM HoonThatFerrari was starred HoonThatFerrari was unstarred

Uncle Bo
08/31/09

In reply to What Happens If You Blow A Tire At 217 MPH?
His problems started when he took his hand off the wheel to downshift. He kept going back and forth to the wheel and shifter, trying to control the car with one hand. That was a mistake. If he kept both hands on the wheel, it may not have been so bad.

Good thing he was well protected, that was a bad flip.
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crinklesmith
08/31/09

@Uncle Bo: I think the downshifting was an attempt to use engine braking to keep the car straight by applying a drag on the rear wheels; if he would have used the friction brakes, the weight transfer would unload the rear end even more that it already was, and the spin would have been nearly instantanious. Unfortunatly, with 50% of his rear traction instantly gone, and a giant chunk of rotating rubber throwing the back end of the car around, there really wasn't much to do at that point but to pucker up and hope you don't land in a cactus.
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Uncle Bo promoted this comment crinklesmith was starred crinklesmith was unstarred

Uncle Bo
08/31/09

@crinklesmith: The driver needs to watch more NASCAR. When a car blows a tire at Daytona or someplace, he is constantly working the wheel to maintain control. Even if the car is spinning wildly, the driver doesn't give up. Only until the car has slowed and is under control does the driver reach down for the shifter.

His goal should have been to maintain control at all costs. The car is going to slow down naturally; it has a blown tire. At least he knew enough to not slam on the brakes, but the downshifting was a major error that could have cost him his life.
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Edited by Uncle Bo at 08/31/09 11:03 PM Uncle Bo was starred Uncle Bo was unstarred

that ain't the way to have fun, son
08/31/09

In reply to What Happens If You Blow A Tire At 217 MPH?
Having traversed a fairly large percentage of The Silver State's roads at triple-digit speeds, on two wheels, I can say there is an upside having nothing to hit, roadside.

The downside of this is you can get bored rather easily, even at triple-digits, while on two wheels. Oh, and 80 MPH feels like you're casually strolling along, which is odd when you realize how fast you're still going, even after slowing, significantly.

/barely resisted the natural reaction after being told to slow down to tell Mr. Po-leece officer, "but I did slow down..."
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that ain't the way to have fun, son
08/31/09

In reply to What Happens If You Blow A Tire At 217 MPH?
Some Bondo'll fix that right up.
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Edited by that ain't the way to have fun, son at 08/31/09 4:34 PM

vwminispeedster, pronounded Si-trow-in
08/31/09

In reply to What Happens If You Blow A Tire At 217 MPH?
I remember my dad telling me a story of some guy with more money than brains in a Ferrari "saved" a few bucks by not buying the correct tires (at the time Z-rated were the best), crashed and ended up killing his co-driver/wife. Don't race if you aren't prepared to spend whatever it takes to have the correct hardware!
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PowerTryp, Starless wonder.
08/31/09

In reply to What Happens If You Blow A Tire At 217 MPH?
BAHAHAHAHAHA, I just checked the Wiki for the silver state classic challenge and I came across this wonderful quote.

"Although high speed race cars receive much of the publicity, the majority of participants take part in mainstream street cars at average speeds ranging from 95 to 150 mph (153 to 241 km/h). These cars run the gamut from sports cars like Corvettes and Mustangs to sedans like Infiniti G35s, Mercedes wagons, and even Saturns."

Ghasp even saturns!
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veronykah promoted this comment

veronykah
08/31/09

@PowerTryp: Sweet! Does that mean I can take my '91 Celica?
I've already blown a tire doing 90 on I-80...
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Edited by veronykah at 08/31/09 10:29 PM veronykah was starred veronykah was unstarred

engineerd
08/31/09

In reply to What Happens If You Blow A Tire At 217 MPH?
You know those emails and stuff that say, "You thought you were having a bad day?" Then show you pictures of someone shoveling poo, crashed airplanes, and what not.

This just replaced all of those.
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Rockford_Brodie will get himself and others killed promoted this comment engineerd was starred engineerd was unstarred

SlowMo (actually, there's no E on my R)
08/31/09

In reply to What Happens If You Blow A Tire At 217 MPH?
I hope he sent his roll cage fabricator a thank you note.
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Mad_Science promoted this comment

layabout
08/31/09

In reply to What Happens If You Blow A Tire At 217 MPH?
"What happens if you blow a tyre at 217mph?"

Shit,...........shit happens,just ask Hamster
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YellowDucati
08/31/09

In reply to What Happens If You Blow A Tire At 217 MPH?
DANG!
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Formerlythegreatestdriver promoted this comment YellowDucati was starred YellowDucati was unstarred

FTGDWolverineEdition'09
08/31/09

In reply to What Happens If You Blow A Tire At 217 MPH?
Well...you just a)die b) live to tell your story on Jalopnik and TV shows.
Reply

leavethegun-takethecannoli
08/31/09

In reply to What Happens If You Blow A Tire At 217 MPH?
Damn.

I never blew a tire at any serious speed, but I was on a bus that blew a tire, and we were traveling at about 60-65. It was a harrowing experience. Fortunately, the driver was excellent and we came to a stop without crashing.

Speaking of blowing things- has anybody seen, ah, nevermind.
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FTGDWolverineEdition'09
08/31/09

@leavethegun-takethecannoli: The more serious question here is WTH were you doing on a bus in the first place?
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vwminispeedster, pronounded Si-trow-in
08/31/09

@Formerlythegreatestdriver: this reminds me of the arguement I got into with the AMTRAK chick over the phone when I was trying to get home from college in Santa Barbara.

"Well Sir it looks like the train transfers at a point to a motorcoach."

"I get off the train and have to take a bus?"

"It's a motorcoach."

"It's a bus. I don't want to take a bus."

"Sir its a motorcoach and will get you to your destination a couple hours sooner."

"I don't care. I'm not taking the bus. I don't care if the train transforms into a bus, I'm not taking the bus."

"It's a motorcoach."
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Edited by vwminispeedster, pronounded Si-trow-in at 08/31/09 3:56 PM

FTGDWolverineEdition'09
08/31/09

@vwminispeedster, pronounded Si-trow-in: Thx for making me pretty much roll on the floor at work. You have no idea how long it took to type this post. Seriously.
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leavethegun-takethecannoli
08/31/09

@Formerlythegreatestdriver: It was a class trip.
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Sloop_John_B
08/31/09

In reply to What Happens If You Blow A Tire At 217 MPH?
According to the picture, your head goes through the roof backwards.

That said, I never ever want to crash going anything north of 50mph, let alone 200!
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