My First Spin Out

So the reason I was in Bahrain this past weekend was to take part in the Bahrain GP Open Track that took place on Friday. During one of the racing sessions, I experienced my first spin out and captured it on video. It had been raining earlier in the day and although the track had mostly dried up, the red and white rumble strips on the corners were still damp and I drove over one after running wide and completely lost traction.

The interesting part for me was how the experience felt a lot longer than it actually was. As soon as I started spinning out, in my head I started to go back and try and remember what I learned when I took drifting lessons a few months ago. I then let go of the steering wheel while at the same time I started thinking, ok, I might be heading towards the wall on my right side, if I hit it, I’ll probably mess up the whole side of my car. Then I started wondering how much that might cost in repairs and how long I was going to have to wait for the parts to arrive. During this time I was also trying to figure out where on the track I was and which way I was facing. When I saw that I was starting to point in the right direction, I took a hold of the steering again to control the spin. Luckily, I ended up with a perfect 360 spin and didn’t hit a wall or another car (I was going somewhere between 150-170km/h at that point). As soon I was facing the right way again I just stepped on it.

All those thoughts and discussions I was having in my head happened in just 2 seconds although it felt a lot longer while it was happening. I think I now kinda understand when people say life flashes before your eyes just before you die, or in my case, spin out. Anyway, you can check out snippets of Friday’s open track day in the video below compiled by the Bahrain International Circuit.

A post shared by Bahrain International Circuit (@bah_int_circuit) on Nov 24, 2017 at 12:14pm PST