This article first appeared in the June, 2016 edition of SportsCar Magazine. SCCA members can read the current and past editions of SportCar digitally here after logging into their account; To become an SCCA member and get SportsCar mailed to your home address monthly in addition to the digital editions, click here.
I passed a couple of street accidents on the way home today, and I thought to myself: There, but for the grace of God, go I.
It’s the late 1970s, and I’m driving south on 441 from the University of Florida in my nifty Datsun 510 two-door. Got some BFG 50s on the back; pretty tired from Solo wars, and it’s raining bloody murder. My girlfriend Joan is riding along when we pass a crossover channeling water into our lane. Swoosh, we instantly hydroplane and whip around, entering the grassy median backwards at around 60mph. The 510 comes about as I downshift for second in a full 360, gassing it for momentum to claw up the wet lawn back to the soaked roadway. No damage, never stopped, returning to the asphalt like we planned it. Librarian Studies major Joan, her indoor complexion more pasty than ever, says in a wavering voice, “Can we slow down now?”
Now it’s the early 1980s, and I’m a hotshot autocrosser, driving my friend/sponsor Debbie’s snazzy black brand-new Bertone (Fiat) X1/9 onto an interstate on-ramp, heading home from tearing up a cone course in South Florida, leading a Melbourne-based posse of about five cars. I admit my car-control skills were not yet fully developed (and still aren’t...), and the ultra-brief wheelbase and transverse mid-engine of the little lightweight Italian could rotate like Stars On Ice.
Diving into the 90 in full show-off mode, I trail-brake a moment too long, and suddenly we’re Superveloce sideways. Fast hands catch the slide with an armload of steering correction, but naive eyes look out toward what I’m afraid I’ll hit. Well, you go where you look. There’s no correction back to straight, because I’m surprised and worried, and hook!
We shoot off the outside into the grass. Then up the embankment of the overpass, like the high banks of Daytona, back down through the grass, returning to the asphalt like we planned it. No damage, save soiled underwear. People, any wall, sign, ditch, tree, canal; we’d have hit it hard.
On two wheels, 2012: I’m riding my big BMW R1200GS home to Atlanta from the Mid-Ohio Pirelli World Challenge race, and it’s drizzling and dusk. It’s miles to any town in western North Carolina, taking the bike-road long way home. Well on ahead I see a couple of cars flash their headlights – hidden cop? Way out here in the grass-fed, happy-cow pastures? Barbed wire fence lined both sides as I notice a minivan doesn’t have its lights on just yet; at dusk, in the rain. As we slowly gain, the van’s lights finally flicker on. 55mph limit, it’s doing maybe 40. I’m running my big PIAA auxiliary lights and turn signal as the slowing van eases a bit onto the right shoulder, and I ease just over the centerline to pass by, then heeyahhh – the frappin’ van goes hard left! Very drunk local woman was looking for her driveway, and, by god, she found it!
I counter-steer the bars with a shove and go for the ABS braking as I see her bumper pass within inches of removing my right cylinder and maybe foot. The PIAAs illuminate the gravel as I cross her driveway entrance and enter waist-high grass. May not be so bad, I think for a moment, then instantly I’m flying through the air in a gymnastic somersault, wondering where the heck my bike went. I land squarely on my helmeted head to the crunching of neck vertebrae. If not for the deep grassy cushion, I shudder to think. The bike? Upside down in the grass-obscured, deep roadside ditch, mostly unharmed. The Spring Creek Volunteer Fire Department comes to the rescue, the drunken lady apologizes (they knew her alcoholic history well), and I remount my soggy steed, luggage still in place, shifter bent back into place, neck just a little stiff.
Modern age, 2015, just a few months ago: California countryside south of San Jose, Bay Area. We’ve just left the Interstate, to meet a friend at a classy golf resort. We’re traveling down a two-lane at a mild 40mph, following a Lexus SUV that begins to move right and stop roadside. We politely slow and ease just over the double yellow as we roll by, then heeyahhh– Lexus whips a U-turn! No time for anything but all the swerve I can muster, and, by dumb luck, and a special offer from Sixt, I’ve sprung for a BMW 328i. The pretty SUV is coming hard as it disappears from my peripheral, and I’m bracing for the impact that never comes. I know you could not have slipped a rental contract between us. And my BlackBox Guard dash cam is in my briefcase, not on the dash. Rats! What a post that would have been!
But the life-changer: 2009, leaving the Mid-Ohio World Challenge race again, dark and dusky, beautiful evening, I pull out to pass on the two-lane State Road 314. The passing zone is a little shorter than I expected, and I think to myself, “Nah, I don’t think I need to be quite this aggressive right now. I’ll just back off a bit and slip in behind again.” Then I see the horse and buggy. Amish. No lights. Looming. He’s got the horse rearing, squeezing on the narrow shoulder for all he’s worth, but still taking most of the oncoming lane. He could see me coming, but I surely couldn’t see him in the growing dim. He’s so close, I only have time to gasp and flash tightly by.
Friends, if I hadn’t made the casual, hardly even necessary, choice to ease back, we’d all be dead; me, pious Amishman, innocent, sizable mare, and big black surrey. Gives me chills when I relive the moment.
Some may claim a God saved us, but I don’t buy that. I don’t imagine super-naturals playing serendipitous games with we mortals, like the Greeks and Romans did. I just call it circumstance and dumb luck, yet but for the grace of it, there go I.
Words by Randy Pobst
Photo by iStockPhoto.com/2windspa
