From the road...

The Cat with the big turbo that they said was turned down, made 30 lbs of boost, we never touched it. It’d run over 100 in high hole and letting her eat. A few times we connected with other race rigs and rolled on, especially when we hooked up with another Toyota one. Good times.

 

Fastest we ever made it from Daytona to Charlotte was with Nascar haulers a little over 6 hours I believe

 

When those things are rolling they are really stable too, all that weight and the aero packages cut the wind so you’re not getting blown around.

 

It’s set up but you can see the back gate that you’d see when drafting our rig. I always liked the design showing the bikes like they’re ready to be unloaded.

 

Damn , there are a lot of truck driver videos online lately, of drivers running into parked Rigs at truck stops. With the offenders just attempting to drive off like nothing happened.

 

Thats sweet!! I would love to drive something like that!! We got to Talladega early one friday,and a Trans Am team was there with a set up something like that with cars.
Cars in roof,garage,and a kick ass living quarters in the nose.Ive never forgot that set up nicest I have seen

 

They drive off because they know that any accident can end a driver's career.

 

Going off of memory from reading about the story (as well as some insightful comments on Jalopnik), but I believe the most incriminating/negligent part of the story is after the driver realized his brakes were failing, he had a 7 mile stretch of flat road where he could’ve stopped. Unfortunately for all involved, he didn’t stop and continued his descent. In another unfortunate circumstance, traffic was stopped because of a previous accident so not having brakes at full strength proved to be fatal to four people.

 

Thanks! My buddy knows everything about them and has worked around them for decades. I drug him to Montreal to look at one that was junk so he found this one, we flew to Seattle and drove it back. I’d never driven a semi or any two speed axle truck. He got us to western Montana then in an icy snowstorm told me it was my turn. Only advice he gave was before passing out asleep was “stop using the clutch” uh ok... I figured it out and we were pushing snow with the bumper by the time we got back to Michigan.

That was a really famous NASCAR rig at one time. It was a “King if the Road” brand trailer built on a Kentucky trailer chassis. It was so much nicer than the spread axle ones, even the Featherlights. Alum is nice for a decade but it doesn’t last. They are always welding those things up with bracing to supplement. This one had never had an issue.

 

thanks for that, but it makes less sense now. If the brake system loses air all brakes will lock, if it’s a runaway and they get glazed, cooked then when the 7 miles of no incline then the truck would’ve stopped if the brakes were in a low pressure failure mode. In case anyone in this convo doesn’t understand... air brakes are designed to all lock up if you get a leak anywhere... as opposed to hydraulic brakes where if you brake fluid leak you have no brakes... if you get an air leak you have all brakes full power. This is why I asked you guys because you’re all mechanically savvy enough to understand rather than read media BS.

 

We developed a tiny pinhole in a turbo tube, when exhaust temps got high from using the Jake break down mountains, that blew hot exhaust air onto a brake line causing a loss of air pressure and the brake system locking up.

We had a couple of farm boys driving to Laguna, spoiled ones that just called roadside. They came out and changed the plastic brake line, that was clearly melted but didn’t look to see what caused it.

This was on the east side of SD, when he got to the black hills on the West side of SD it did it again. That truck service was pissed when their 24 hour guarantee of repair got used to the fullest. I was pissed and had to figure it out for them all with cell phone pics. He didn’t have a long enough 5” flex pipe to replace the turbo pipe, so I had them make a heat shield and clamped another half pipe over the pinhole spot about a foot long. Problem solved.

That guy drove an extra 400 miles that day because he didn’t think how a plastic air line got melted and charged the $350 service call for changing a ¢5 piece of airline.

oh yeah, all of you guys make sure you use the AMA roadside service that comes with the auto renewal. That saved us thousands and thousands in all our race rigs.

 

And respect to you real drivers out there @418 @ToofPic @dtalbott

My only experience is in our rig and it gave me a privileged view from my side, but I saw the bullshit and idiot drivers of all walks causing issues the worst of which were the ones without any sense, like the farm boys I hired. They had years of experience and I couldn’t wait to get them out of my truck. Another ex factory Superbike semi driver, I fired him after one cross country trip as he was an idiot and got charged $600 in dot fees... and we were exempt. Took weeks to fix that mess.

 

Sorry for my lack of technical expertise, but I was trying to paraphrase this comment from Jalopnik.

https://jalopnik.com/truck-driver-sentenced-110-years-for-deadly-crash-stemm-1848226110

jimmy-buffettAdam Ismail
12/16/21 1:13pm


Some context for those of you not from Colorado, who don’t know the circumstances of what happened beyond what you’re reading in this article.

I-70 just west of Golden, Colorado goes up from ~6600 elevation to about ~7600 elevation over the course of 3 miles. When you go up that hill, big trucks stay in the right (slow) lane and everybody goes around them. When you come DOWN that hill, there are TONS of signs, warnings, cautions, a runoff ramp etc telling everyone — especially truckers — about the quick decline.

This guy’s brakes didn’t fail due to a mechanical issue, his brakes failed because he didn’t know how to drive his truck down a steep hill. Meaning, down-shifting to engine brake. He used his brakes down that hill, not his gears, which caused his brakes to fail.

There’s a dashcam video showing him swerving all over the place going down the hill, going past a truck runoff ramp. He had the chance to stop his truck on the hill while his brakes were failing, and he didn’t.

The bottom of the hill in Golden is almost 4 miles from where the accident occurred in Lakewood. Meaning, he continued driving on flat / level interstate for at least 3-4 minutes before having the accident in Lakewood. He had plenty of time to down-shift, engine brake, pull over to the breakdown lane on flat level interstate.

All these negligent/indifferent/wrong choices that he made over the course of 7-8 minutes led to the deaths of 4 people. This wasn’t a case of a semi truck driving in town then *surprise* your brakes failed. This was a tragedy 7-8 minutes in the making, with multiple opportunities for the driver to save lives.

I say this ^^^ stating no opinion on the sentence he was given, but only to provide context that so much media coverage lately doesn’t have the time or the interest to give.

 

Thanks man, but I'm always learning! I can honestly say I enjoy what I do.Ive tried to leave it, but come back .I like the independence.
I wanna see your set up sometime if you're in the Ga. Area

 

No apologies needed, I asked about it because I wanted it from you guys not MSM. I explained the tech in case anyone didn’t know and wanted to learn, I always want to learn, hope it didn’t sound condescending, certainly didn’t mean it that way.

that being said, if he is shown frantically swerving and trying to get the rig under control, that sounds like he was trying not to injure anyone. Nobody that knew how to get the rig under control properly wouldn’t have been trying to do so. 7 min isn’t long when you’re freaking out trying not to crash and not knowing what to do. I’m not defending the guy but I still don’t see how this isn’t an accident. Lots of ahitty drivers out there in all vehicle types. He tested and passed to get his creds. This is on the state that issued it, the school that taught it, and the DOT that uses the trucking industry as an atm every bit as much as the driver, probably moreso.

Ive driven that stretch of 70 many times but besides coming down from CO to KS and the big elevation drop I don’t recall this area.

again you guys are my only info... why was a car on the interstate to hit? Was this not I70 but a business 70 or something?

 

There was another crash at the bottom I believe

 

being a GA boy, you’ll like this... that was Junior Johnson’s last Rig(he started again with his son now). Way down deep that trailer was red, it was Bill Elliots Budweiser semi during his last championship. I had all the original blue prints in the lounge, I’m not a nascar guy but it was cool! Especially watching a doc about Jr and he ran #27 just like me. After Jr it was sold the the creator of the HANS device, he added the High Tech awning because he raced Miata cup at Laguna and Sears, western stuff. Then he sold it to the NASCAR NW champ that I got it from in Seattle.

Ironically that pic I posted was from Road Atlanta. I sold that to Erik Buell, and they used it for their last US comp with Yates and May. It got bought with the last liquidation by LAP and they tried to sell it to me for 50% more than I sold it to Erik for so I told them no thanks. That was a 1992 Kentucky trailer and was head and shoulders above ones decades newer.

nearly all the rigs at MotoA are the same, nice lounge and generator up front, work area below, garage up top. All those guys will give you a tour, just ask. Kawi had that double decker lounge where the roof cranked up a decade ago when Richard ran that team, it was cool and must’ve come from their MX team, they have all the best cool shit

 

When my father was alive,he was a Huge Bill Elliott fan, even before Bill was famous.
My dad also lived in Dawsonville!
Next time you're at Road Atlanta, message me!!

 

I posted a video in the proper place for you, you are just way off base here.
Speaking as an ex truck driver, you are willing to cut the driver way too much slack when it comes to responsibility, please don't get behind the wheel, it's serious business.

 

I haven’t read any of the stories so maybe there are more details about equipment failure or something that should have been caught in a pre-trip inspection, I’m assuming the brake system was working properly and he just cooked them.

I’ve had air loss to the trailer and it didn’t result in locked brakes, I think the weight is enough to keep them from locking, it just slows down in a hurry. I’ve also had brakes that were so out of adjustment that there was hardly any braking from the trailer. That’s on the driver, yet I don’t think they teach brake adjustment in driving schools, it’s one of the many things you pick up as you get experience. I agree with you, I don’t put all blame on the drivers, just like regular driving, there’s a ton that should be taught but isn’t.