[Karl Bebout]

Sometimes, shutzpah just happens. I had checked all my spinners and they were all tight. LR wheel came off anyway. Fortunately, I wasn't going all that fast when it happened and I kept the dirty side down. Left tail pipe is squished but I think a pipe expander will round it back out. The hub got "milled" down but not really hurt. The sway bar bushing bent, the inside of the wheel is chewed up a bit, and the most damage was to the trunk floor. The fiberglass tub is broken and a couple of the aluminum panels now need help. Fortunately, its all just pop riveted and after the last car, I'm very good at removing rivets and replacing them. I'll check with ERA about the aluminum panels and probably repair the tub, myself (or with a little help from my friends). I was wanting to spray the tub with truck bed liner to give some friction and now I'll be able to do it without lots of masking off. I'd planned on yesterday being my last time on the track anyway, and now that's definitely firmed up. A couple of the guys there mentioned that its a bad idea to place knock offs under such heavy stress when the spinners are aluminum and I'm inclined to think they are correct. The threads on both the hub and spinner look just fine but I'll do a closer inspection before trusting it. I did drive the car home, on surface streets and at fairly low speeds. Hector followed closely to let me know if there was any wabbling, which there wasn't. Pretty exciting, but thanking my lucky stars the body wasn't damaged at all. I'da sure had some 'splainin' to do.