Well, he stayed right-side-up, so that's a good thing!!
I did a maneuver very similar to that at Bonneville in 2008 at 161 mph. My car stayed flat too, and I was very thankful for that! I wasn't in a cloud of dust - in my case, it was a cloud of smoke because when the engine blew, oil spewed all over all the hot parts, so it was nasty. I couldn't see anything until I came to a stop and was able to open the door.
They have a rule that if you have an "emergency", to pull off onto the right side of the course (if you can). I couldn't see through the smoke, so just nudged the wheel ever so slightly to the right. As luck would have it, I ran right over the right side "2-mile" sign & timing light. I remember seeing the big orange "2" momentarily appear in the windshield. Anyway, they actually "prepare" the course by repeatedly dragging & rolling it. Off to the sides, the salt isn't nearly as flat, smooth, and hard as on the course. So I think what happened is when my right wheels hit that soft salt, it musta tugged on that side enough to upset the equalibrium. So I went into a skid, spinning to the right, & made at least a couple complete turns before finally coming to a stop. At the time, I thought it was a half dozen turns, but now I doubt it could have really been that many.
The year after, my engine blew at 183 mph and there was even more smoke. But that time, I was able to exit the course to the right without spinning out, so just did a big, long arc to the right until my parachute stopped me. There was so much smoke that time, they were sure there was a fire. When the fire truck got there, they were almost insisting I "admit" to a fire & tell them where it was. We opened the hood, the trunk, & nothing was burned. But they kept holding their fire extinguishers with "hair triggers", all dissappointed not to be able to spray anything.
Later, I discovered I'd forgotten to "arm" my on-board fire suppression system before taking off on that run. It's a good thing there
wasn't a fire, because I'm not sure I would have had presence of mind enough to think to pull those safety pins if I'd tried to hit the extinguisher and nothing happened while bathed in flames!!! There was actually
SO much smoke, I was halfway wondering if there was a fire for awhile. But I couldn't feel heat or see any orange light, sooo.... But the smoke was so thick, I was having trouble breathing and actually got just a little worried about smothering at one point! I was sure glad when I was able to release the door net & roll down the window! It was quite an adventure, I can tell you that!!!
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