Maybe they were just used to driving the unsafe street cars of the time and never thought that cars - even race cars - could be safe in an accident, and in fact thought

"Oh this has got a safety belt, disc brakes and a roll over bar - wow it is really safe" - and it was compared to what they raced 5 years before. :LOL:

Indeed they did.

Those of us who remember racing in that era also remember the number of drivers who lost their lives pursuing their dreams. While racing drivers still die, the frequency has been reduced from an expectation to an anomaly.

Those were the days...
 

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Seatbelts?? I don't need no stinkin' aaaaaaahhh!!!

I was watching the movie 24 Hour War last week and one of the drivers from the day said half the drivers didn't want to wear the seat belts because they feared being stuck in the car when it caught on fire. This was also mentioned in Ford vs Ferrari.

It's like a motorcycle again, in that you have good chances being separated from the heavier object (obviously, many other factors come into play there).

I wear my 5pt harness all the time because I don't want to take the steering wheel to the face in a minor/moderate accident. In a major crash, well, who the heck knows what will happen based on the pics above.

Are we having fun yet? LOL

Steering wheel
 

One guess what twisted up that steering wheel....

Close to 200MPH on the straight with bias ply tires. Brass ones.

We see you Jim....but then we also see dead people!

As I got more and more comfortable with my car this year, I started driving it faster, even just brief blasts on the open road. I've done 125 (in Mexico) so far (and have the recalling speedo function to prove it ;) ). I will say the car is rock solid. It's downright cozy at 80. But as I cruise down the road in a 2,200 lb HOME MADE "car" my mind can't help but wander! :eek::CRY:

I've been concerned about people building vehicles and not thinking of Safety first. Always stress Safety before we think of Speed.... As you can see we spent a lot of time on making the chassis stronger and stiffer .... with protection for the driver from side and bottom and top.... when ever you terminate a tube in the middle of another tube ... you need to support the main tube so it can not collapse.... Check out the chassis reinforcement on KMP259

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Remember that these are street versions of racing cars. Even the original street cars had no additional body safety features. The Cobra was a surround designed to push an engine around a track. Everything else was to support that mission. Race drivers were paid to take those risks, and some paid dearly.

My first major outing in the car (less than 200 miles on it) we were doing up to 140 on back roads at a ralley. This was alos my first experience in an open car with sticky tires and a side pipe collector to throw them at.

I must admit I had a nagging fear it was bolts falling off and one was about to be the last.

I guess most hobbies have a risk factor. I've built a Gyrocopter and only one bolt has to come loose and it's history. The scariest factor in driving is some basterd or old granny might ruin your day.

THAT'S funny!

In going to one of our major cars & coffee spots, we drive over a very long bridge. As I drive any of my older cars, I can't help but look at the small guardrails and wonder if they'd stop my car should a ball joint fail or wheel just decide to fly off pulling the car towards the edge. It's a LONG way down!

Ya know, as a kid we did the dumbest, craziest things without ever thinking about the consequences if something went wrong... I miss those days! lol

I never really felt unsafe or in any extraordinary jeopardy driving my Cobra - and when i say drove, I do mean drove. Small Caribbean island with mostly hilly, narrow, bad mountainous roads, no enforced speed limits and happy go lucky drivers. Some of you have been here and know what I'm talking about.

I always had a degree of comfort that having rebuilt and maintained the car myself I knew it intimately. Having raced, launched, drifted and spun it under controlled conditions on open lots, brand new development roads and old airport ramps, I felt very in tune with it's handling dynamics.

Now having said all of that, when I was run off the road a few years ago, i did my level best to recover it and failing to do so, I consider myself extremely fortunate to have walked away with a broken shoulder, a busted but rebuildable Cobra and an undamaged skull and spinal cord. I spun off the road and impacted hard backwards into the embankment of a large drainage ditch.

When I realized I was heading off the road backwards, I remember a flash thought about my head and the roll bar. In the aftermath, The steering wheel was bent outward ( towards the driver) and my left shoulder was obviously broken or dislocated. My sunglasses were found 30 feet from where the car came to rest.

Because I was on my way to a tennis club very close to home, I had only buckled up the lap belt. I'm pretty sure that is what allowed me to brace forward and save myself from more grievous injury.

After owning and driving a pretty good variety of fast cars over the years, nothing compares to the visceral thrill I got from the Cobra. Everything feels a bit pedestrian and watered down by comparison. Forgive me for the ramble :)

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Buzz,

It is amazing how many thoughts go through your head in a split second. In the midst of trying to correct something gone awry, and that "Oh Sh@t!" going through your mind, you still had enough time to think to come up with an adjustment to minimize your head hitting the roll bar. Unfortunately we do not always have the time to do that as some accidents are not foreseen and there is no time to react.

Jokingly, when I first saw the photo of your cobra I thought, "That's not an accident, it's just a cobra lurking on the roadside waiting to strike at the next Prius that drove by."

I have worked with a lot of brain injured people, so glad that you were not one of them and that we have been able to enjoy your wit and wisdom these past few years.

Jim

Buzz,

You were fortunate and that is good. At least when I had my spin out I stayed on the track and never hit anything which was more luck than any good driving as all I was thinking of is when I this thing going to stop spinning and what happened.

Then shortly after that happened one of the show guys here was on his way to a show and he saw a wheel pass him. He said for a second or two he wondered where it came from then he felt the rear of the car start to dip and he managed to get stopped before he wrecked. A group of hot rodders on their way to the show stopped to help him and they found his wheel and tire nearly 1/4 mile down the road and in a field. He was fortunate as the wheel came straight out and never even hit the fender well.

Ron

Buzz, I think we can add (As in plane crashes) any one we can walk away from, is a good one ;) It's funny how much time you have before the accident. I was racing the Alfa @ PIR in Oregon, it had just rained, but track was dry. First lap (Big pack of cars), going into turn 3 (Loooong right hander) a Mini got sideways, and David in his P-1800, punched him in the pass. door, since I was right behind, I took to the outside, and hit the WET grass (It's true, you speed up on wet grass). Well I'm now doing 70+ siding sideways, heading for the tire wall (250-300Ft away) Soooooo.... with lots of time to think :) The only thing I could come up with, let off the brakes, turn the wheel straight, drop it in 3rd. gear, and nail the throttle. Slowly the car started a forward motion rather just sideways :) I still just clipped the tire wall, but just barely. Small dent, compared to the alternative. I can still close my eyes and relive that one :) Cheers TommyRot.

Thanks guys - the only conscious thoughts I remember having were the rollbar and my head and the power poles that lined the road. i only assume that I grabbed the steering wheel hard and braced forward, but I don't remember consciously doing it. Earlier on while I wrestled to pull back onto the road and regain control, I did think about trying to avoid oncoming traffic above all else.

I always found the Cobra to be fairly smooth and predictable up to the limit, but once it lets go, the movements become very quick and violent. I've driven on icy roads for years in Canada and spent a lot of time pushing the Cobra and other cars to their limits in open, controlled areas and I consider myself pretty competent at car control; but once that Cobra let go that day, after a couple of attempted corrections, I became a passenger along for a short, wild ride with a hard stop at the end. Still happy to talk about it today with nothing more to show for it than a bony lump on my left shoulder. :)

Yea, that's the part that I am curious about. I have to go play with it in controlled spaces. But the tires are hard so it just slides around mostly, which is fun, but then again not. It's like spinning tires in the rain. Sure, that was fun in my mother's Catalina when I was 16, but when you have real power or are trying to actually HAVE traction, it gets old fast.

I may have to go for a ride after work tonight!