To be seventeen years old and to find yourself in a Lotus Elise racer lapping Donington Park at full blast must be any teenager's dream. Alas, it can all easily turn into a nightmare when you experience mechanical failure.
This is what happened to a teen called Ryan Savage and his ordeal was captured in the footage below. Even with the Elise's rather modest grunt, Ryan found himself negotiating the Craner Curves "S" of the famous British track at over 110 MPH (177 KM/H).
This section is one of Donington's most difficult challenges and right in the middle of the action his Elise 111R racecar experience a rear suspension fault, atributed to the toe link.
The Lotus entered a critical state of oversteer and perhaps unaware of the mechanical issue that made any attempt to save the car futile, Ryan tried to countersteer.
It didn't take more than 2 seconds for the car to slide across the grass on the side of the track and hit the concrete barrier at about 100 MPH (160 KM/H).
The impact was focused on the rear left quarter of the Lotus, with the rollcage, racing seats, safety harness and all the other protection elements absorbing the force of the crash in a textbook fashion. The safety crew, together with the medics at Donington Park rushed to the scene of accident, with the final result being that Ryan walked away with just a bruised shoulder and a slight concussion. To be able to walk away from a triple-digit accident is quite a rare happening.
The 17-year old wishes to return to his racing seat in a week or two. It's not difficult to understand why when Ryan had set an Elise Trophy Donington record just a few days before the accident. You can check out the crash footage, as well as the racer's aforementioned hot lap in the clips below.
In his quest to bring you the most impressive automotive creations, Andrei relies on learning as a superpower. There's quite a bit of room in the garage that is this aficionado's heart, so factory-condition classics and widebody contraptions with turbos poking through the hood can peacefully coexist. Full profile
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