Originally Posted by
MarkW
My thoughts on Phil's crash:
There are only 2 left hand corners at Hampton and the downhill left hander is a proper corner. The first left hander is just a kink. So tyre temperature (lack thereof) may have been a factor still. The corner is a downhill one with a decreasing radius as you come to the end and this does really test front end grip so there may have been a combination coming into effect - a rearwards shift in body position, a counter steer load increase as the corner tightens, an increasing throttle opening and a cooler tyre all combining to give a front end washout.
I do not agree with an over filled reservoir as being the likely cause because if the reservoir was overfilled the problem would have been very apparent on the ride to the track itself or in one of the earlier sessions. Overfilled reservoirs mean that the pads are kept in contact with the disc and so as things get hotter and hotter the problem compounds very quickly - the ride to the circuit is far longer than any of the sessions at the circuit and so the front brakes would have locked on before Phil arrived. Even if they hadn't done so on the ride there unless Phil was barely using his brakes in sessions 1 and 2 and then was hitting them really hard early in session 3 the problem would have been evident in an earlier session. And with Phil in the kitty litter the front brakes would have been glowing with heat.
It is also possible that the jar of the crash caused a calliper piston to stick briefly or a bit of the litter wedged briefly in the front brake lever housing and jammed the lever. This litter was dislodged when the fiddling with the lever occurred.
Contamination is also unlikely in my opinion - again the problem would be very unlikely to manifest itself by making a brake suddenly come on - it is rather more likely to make the brakes fail rather than work excessively well.
So, sorry Phil,
Pilot error.
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