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Old 11-12-2010, 09:38 AM
Excaliber Excaliber is offline
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Well I did "drift" my Excalibur for a short time. Drifting in the USA started in Hawaii, the Japanese influence and all. I quit when over time the local guys became a LOT more serious, it got to the point where you had to be willing to put your car in the wall to score points with more radical moves.

What really ended it for me was the day I lost my brakes coming into a hairpin corner at the end of the back stretch at a speed impossible to make that corner. I was going into the tire wall for sure. I stabbed the clutch and pulled the gear shift hard into 2nd and then dumped the clutch. That locked up the rear wheels, put the motor into high over rev rpm and threw the car sideways. It scrubbed off enough speed so that was able to "drift" through that corner sideways and it looked spectacular, like I had it all under control. I needed a full change of clothes following that and decided I had had enough drifting for a life time.

That was the number 1 thing on my mind during open track at SAAC-35. What if I lost the brakes, suddenly without warning? What would I do? Thankfully the brakes faded slowly enough (still, pretty quick though) and I got enough warning to exit the track.

It's not a bad idea to punish your brakes in some controlled manner to the point where they give out, fade or whatever. So you have an idea of what to expect when they go away. On the Excalibur I experienced a very hard pedal, no warning, no stopping, just push on it as hard as you could and nothing would happen. On the ERA, the pedal went soft, still some brake, low pedal, mushy, just the opposite of what the Excal was like!
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