Safety: Cobra vs C2 Vette or other cars

[Buzz]

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

[1795]

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

[Ron61]

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