We managed to catch up with a still slightly sore Bill Caswell recently to ask him about the Pikes Peak wreck that killed his BMW, what his plans are for the near future, and just how intense the Pikes Peak experience is. As usual, he didn’t waste any time getting right down to brass tacks. 

“That crash was the first time, for a split second, that I thought I might die in the race car,” Caswell said. “Normally when you crash a race car you lose control. The car comes out from underneath you, or you simply run out of talent. In this case, I was in full control and had to actually decide how to crash the car.”

We’ll explain. As Caswell and his intrepid co-driver Ron were careening up the mountain, Ron was calling out the turns in the same manner that they normally do on the rally circuit. The difference is that there are 156 turns that come in a seemingly unending stream that vary from gentle sweepers to near hairpins like the one that cost Caswell and Ron the car.

“We were really running fast,” Caswelll said. “A lot faster than we had been in practice and Ron made a call out for a high speed left hand turn, and for a split second I thought it may not have been correct. We were at the top of fourth gear, at nearly 100mph when we came into Engineer’s corner, way, way too hot. I had about a quarter of a second to pick between driving straight into a dirt wall, off a cliff toward the tree tops, or into what looked like a little berm and a clearing in the woods. I aimed for that. Unfortunately, that little berm was the leading edge of a 10-15 foot deep ditch. We flew into the ditch and that is what tore the car up so badly. It is a write off, done.”

Caswell is definitely a “that’s racin” kind of guy and that was his take on this episode. “That car was like a worn in baseball glove for me, setup just the way I like it,” he said. “The thing died with its boots on protected us at the end, and that’s what matters. It would have been worse to see that car get him by some lady in a mini-van or somthing. It went down in the heat of battle.”

He said that he struggled during practice all week with the tires on the car, which were not his normal rally gravel tires because of how much pavement the course has on it now. The tires, high performance road race rain pieces hauled ass in a straight line but were not good at all in the dirt. Bill explained, “I almost think that the tread channeling that works well at moving water through the tire was funneling all the dirt and rocks through them too quickly because the car was just not happy on the dirt.” 

As you read this Bill’s on a plane, beginning an adventure you’ll be hearing lots about early next week.

Stay tuned, this should be interesting.