How Stupid Are Some People?

[Mark A]

Driving home from work tonight in the Exige, trundling along the M45 at +50mph towards Coventry and in the distance (approx 1mile) see what I think is a huge plume of spray from a car going through one of the few damp patches around. This, for people who know the M45 was on the RH bend at the bottom of the hill just before the on-ramp from the A45.

 

Anyhow continue on my way and when I get there it wasn't too bad. Continue at the same speed and get to the M45-A45 roundabout which is a 2.5 miles later. Onto the A45 and when I pass the golf cub I can smell what I originally think is just burning, then realise it's burning rubber. I can see some smoke ahead and think it's an engine going bang. Pass the Petrol station at the Rugby junction and everything suddenly hits the brakes, and what looks like a mint Electric Blue Nissan Skyline GTR with the LH rear tyre carcase trying to exit the wheel arch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Now WTF was the muppet doing, the car was stunning and well looked after, that was obvious, however the plume of what I thought was spray was obviously the tyre letting go, considering my speed at the distance he travelled before I caught up (4miles total) he must have been travelling at high speed with only 3 tyres! He waqs in the outside lane just prior to everyone hitting the brakes.

 

Can someone seriously not have noticed that a tyre had let go?

[GCCK]

The vibration and noise should have been a clue for him, although with his "kickin" stereo loud enough the noise may not have got through. Come to think of it, with a murfurr 1GW sub woofer as well, he would have been impervious to vibration as well.

 

With 4WD and torque sensing diffs, it's even possible he may not have noticed the absence of said errant wheel.

 

Guess you can just be too remote from the action!

[ipanter]

How did he not notice when going round the round-about between the M45 & A45???

 

Some people are just plain dumb and shouldn't be allowed to drive.

 

I had a similar incident when following a golf along the M25 once, huge plumes of smoke from the car but the driver was oblivious tootling along at 90, i was able to pull along side and try and explain by waving my arms franticly that she should stop, fortunatly i think she understood something was wrong and pulled onto the hard shoulder.

 

Mark what happened to the Skyline, did he pull over or did he loose the tyre?

[chorton_1]

Or it was nicked.....

[catboy]

I have lost tyres in the past racing skylines in japan, and you can get away with it for a while; the hicas systems will compensate for zero traction on the wheel thats gone and drive you in a straight line... The vibration can be bad, depends how the tyres gone.

 

Im guessing by "electric blue" you mean bayside blue, which would make it either a re-spray, or more likely a BNR34. They run very low-profile tyres as std., and you could easilly get a puncture and not notice until the tyre broke up and started flapping around.

 

I love the way most people assume skyline owners have massive stereos, manchester united tattoo's and 17yr old girlfriends! Theres a lot more to these cars than that; there are v.few chavs who can afford to own/run one, and most of the owners are hardcore enthusiasts, generally at grass-roots/underground levels, not £100 a ticket F1 fans.

 

They are somewhat detached to drive, and you do have to let the computers do their thing to get the best out of them, but a 55k BNR34GTR will give a 90k 911GT3 an absolute pasting around a circuit... On real life roads, the pasting turns into a walk-over for the Nissan; they really are great cars.

 

Just to throw another spanner into the works, I have a BNR32 GTR VII spec Skyline in Japan from when I was living out there; Im still trying to decide between bringing that over here, or buying an elise...

 

b

 

ps... rant over

[Mark A]

Ben,

I know a few Skyline owners (a few of them at work, i.e. Nissan Tech Centre) so don't assume they have the big stereos etc (some do though ).

 

The tyre was coming off when he pulled over just after passing the Rugby junction, the carcase was totally detatched at that point, as I said I really don't understand how it wasn't noticed, even if he did and was going to trundle to safety I was surprised he passed the petrol station at the Rugby junction. The speeds he must have been doing on the M45 after it went were 100mph+. Also it went quite spectacularly on the M45 for me to see it almost a mile behind!

 

This is the colour, but don't think it had that type of rear wing?

 

 

Chris,

I thought about the nicked thing but if so, and with a blown tyre, the last thing you would want to do is stick to a main road and draw attention to yourself, you'd head of the A45 ASAP to dump it somewhere. Difficult to tell but didn't look the 'I've just nicked this' type.

[catboy]

Yeah, bayside blue BNR34.. The GT-R's had the wing, so I guess it was either "spoiler delete" option or a GT-S or something

 

Funnily enough (or not for him..) a mate of mine just destroyed his R34 GT-R yesterday afternoon; blew the head off the block, and holed a piston.. he's got a busy weekend ahead of him!