The 2012 World Rally Championship season is underway. Most recently the racing was going on in Sweden and you’ll not be surprised to learn that the course was a snow covered affair. In this video we see a driver piloting a small, but full boogie Citroen come into a corner way too hot and careen off course toward what appears to be certain disaster in the trees.
Well, it would have been certain disaster if we were driving, but thankfully there was a professional rally driver at the tiller. As you’ll hear in the video, he keeps the skinny pedal buried as he saws at the wheel, attempting to keep some momentum and get the car back on course. Amazingly, he does it, despite the fact that the little hatch is up on two wheels at one point!
Lots of race car drivers have told us over the years that the throttle can often save a bad situation a lot quicker and cleaner than the brakes. That is the truth in this instance, too. If the driver had hit the binders, the car would have either headed into the trees or rolled over. Instead he lost a couple tenths of a second and perhaps a set of boxers.
I did something somewhat similar to this once- back in high school I was going too fast on an iced over dirt road in my ’78 Camaro and as soon as the first curve came along I immediately slid off the road and went sideways into a ditch. My reaction was to floor it and I basically bounced right back out and kept going. No real damage, either, aside from losing the chrome strip along my rocker panel. My friends were laughing the entire time this happened.
My other friend who was following me wasn’t so lucky. once he saw me go off the road he panicked and also went off into the weeds and got his big ol’ ’78 LTD 2 stuck. Hit a road sign too, and we had to call a friend to tow him out. The funny part was after this happened his steering wheel was straight for driving down the road.
Hey,
It was a great save. Amazingly, the driver did it, despite the way that the little bring forth is up on two wheels at a certain point. This time Throttle truly spared all. Throttle spared a terrible circumstance a great deal speedier and cleaner than the brakes.