A little wheel hop, maybe?
Wow RTR, what a great shot of Burkland and the front wheels off the ground!!!
Pardon my ignorance, but what would cause the wheels to come off the ground like that? Heavy braking, causing wheel hop?
As Glen said, the course is pretty rough at that area. Also, I could hear him downshifting like crazy, using compression braking to slow down. I don't know if my shots convey just how close it came to being real unpleasant. When he went by me and I got the shot of the salt spray (I wasn't all that far from the course...but far enough to be out of harm's way) I figger he was still doing 70-80 mph. He got stopped in a little less than a quarter mile from that point...'course I'm estimating so I could be off by...well, whatever.
I think it was the combination of the downshifting and the rough surface and the heavy braking (as Dean mentioned) that caused it. He was REALLY cookin when he came back into the pit area. The first thing outta my mouth (I even surprised myself when I heard myself saying it) was "holy shit! He got stopped." I don't think I was any body more surprised than Tom Burkland. I'm glad it didn't go any further. I couldn't have jogged much more.
Seriously, I'm happy for the whole Burkland team that it got stopped in time.
I'll have some photos of the Mormon Missle turnaround thrash on photobucket shortly...which reminds me. Is anyone having trouble seeing the images there? I got an email from one guy (who can't see my web server, chevyasylum.com) and he said he couldn't see my photos on photobucket, either:
http://s445.photobucket.com/albums/qq178/RayTheRat_2008/Please let me know if there are problems with that link.
RtR