by Mike & Mel » 04 Wed Jul, 2007 10:22 am
For Don's crash, we drove out to the crash site to see if we could learn a little about what happened so we could pass that knowledge on to others in the hopes that it would improve the safety of our beloved little buggies. It's about 45 minutes out of Hemet on a sometimes twisty road up into the pine forest. It is a very beautiful drive. After rising to 5000', it drops down to about 4000' and out of the trees. In the town of Anza, there is an indian casino. Apparently as darkness fell, Don and his friend had just departed the casino and were heading home on Cary Rd. It looks as if they were trying to take a shortcut as the road they were on would have taken them over 6 or 7 miles of dirt trails back to Hemet. About 2 miles from the casino and still on the paved road, the road curves abruptly at the crest of a small hill on to Tripp Flats Rd. There is a 20 MPH curve sign about 300' before the curve. The sign was partially obscured by vegitation as you approached it, but was visible when you got closer. After the sign, the road joggs to the left slightly. As you reach the top of the hill, you get into the left hand curve. the curve starts out gentle enough, but as you reach the center of the curve, the road begins to drop back down, and the curve then gets very tight. The shoulder is all loose dirt and has numerous tracks from other vehicles that have failed to negotiate the turn. It seems as if the curve caught Don by surprise and he ended up getting pushed out into the loose shoulder by centrigugal force. The back end of the buggy started to come around at that point. When they came back onto the pavement, the buggy was somewhat sideways. His right rear tire sidewall folded over (possibly due to low tire pressure alowing the bead to brake) and the wheel rim caught the aspault. The car took a hop and when it came down it sheered the right rear wheel/brake drum off. The car overturned and slid into the brush on the other side of the street. As we did not see the buggy, I am told the single hoop roll bar folded over ABOVE the attachment points. It was still bolted into the floor, and at the sides where it was bolted through the fiberglass. There are houses nearby, so the area is not very remote, and traffic is light, but constant. There was a small memorial there, left by his family.
Mike & Mel
Manx Club #2265
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www.RBCdunebuggy.org
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