Hello Extended Goblin Family!
Ok. It is time for an update on my status, my Goblins status, what happened in my accident / my accident outcome thoughts, a recap of the 2/6/2021 meetup at my house to review my Goblin, and what the plan is going forward. This might get a little long, so please bear with me.
First off, let me apologize to the community and DF for my initial post on my accident. I am not sure what I was thinking posting about my accident when I did. I have left the post up but removed, what on reflection, was misinformation.
My Status
I am going to keep this high level and short since I hate making this about me and not my Goblin, but it is pertinent to what follows in this post.
I am healing up just fine, however it looks like I might be on crutches for 6ish months (or more). The 4 bone brakes are reassembled and healing as expected (13 screws and a plate). The Achilles is healing as expected however, it is my understanding, that recovery from a severed Achilles can take 6-9 months. I am now starting month 2 so I have many more months ahead of physical therapy and recovery. In my mind, this means I have 6-9 months to disassemble to Goblin and source replacement parts.
Now, if my tail bone would just stop aching. I was told it was not fractured or broken but bruising of the tail bone can take months to heal. It is getting better.
Current Status of my Goblin
Currently, my Goblin is in my garage in an initial phase of disassembly.
I built a Goblin dolly and will be building an engine dolly shortly to drop the engine. I have a 4 day weekend coming up so I might get this knocked out then.
My disassembly process is, pull off part, inspect it, inventory it and mark inventory if replacement is needed. Bag it / tag it, place part in proper bin (recycle, return to DF, suspect, reuse). This also includes all hardware. Move to next item. Note that I am keeping all items except those destroyed beyond salvaging. Items like the radiator and fan were completely destroyed so their parts are being disposed of.
Once disassembly is complete, I will have a detailed list of parts needed that I can share and hopefully source from the community and DF.
Fortunately, it appears that there is extraordinarily little damage to the wiring. The only wires that were severed were to the drivers side headlight and that is a simple fix.
So far, the only item broken in the rear of the car is the fuse box mount. If I can source a replacement, great, but I can also fabricate a bolt through mount to the frame that should work just fine. Given the damage to the rest of the car, this is somewhat surprising, at least to me. Lonny has looked over the frame and did note some bending in the rear area that I had not noticed. My major concern here is that the subframe is bent. DF has a jig to put subframes on to check them so I will drop it and have them check the subframe.
Accident Causes
I suspect that this will be the section most of you want to review.
Please note, I am taking responsibility for my actions. I do not need the internet roasting me more that I have roasted myself.
There were multiple factors that caused my accident. The bulk of which, can be traced back to me.
- Suspension not fully dialed in, initial alignment completed, but not perfect.
- Poor tire selection (300 TW tires, could have / should have been sticker?)
- Operators lack of experience with driving ultra-high performance vehicles.
- Non-ideal road conditions (industrial park with imperfect road surfaces).
- Excessive speed for the environment.
I do not believe that anything broke on the vehicle prior to impact. I chose to do one pull with the car, due to road conditions and speed greater than the posted speed limit, the rear end of the car lost traction, started a rotation, and lost control. That lose of control cause me to impact a parked and unoccupied 2002 Dodge Intrepid in an offset fashion, similar to an offset barrier crash test.
For various reason, I am not disclosing my estimated speed. The people that need to know, know. Please don’t ask.
The fact that I was able to exit the Goblin, much less, still be here is testament to the engineering that went into the Goblin.
Here are a few of my takeaways:
- I am a gun guy, so I am going to use a firearm analogy. These vehicles should be treated like all firearms. Like they are loaded, at all times (even when they aren't). When handled improperly, bad things can happen. Especially, the higher horsepower variants.
- Personally, I think the 5-point harnesses saved my life. There are differing opinions on this subject, however I would highly recommend that if you buy a kit, get the harnesses.
- Listen to the forum and get sticky tires, I believe 200 treadwear or sticker is the consensus.
- Don’t drive your car for 10 minutes and do a pull. Bad things will happen. I am proof of that.
- If you are unsure of your capabilities with your car, go to an Autocross and get familiar with it, do not test yourself on public streets.
- When you get to a point of test driving your Goblin, even if it is 500 feet up the street, get somebody to look it over, check all the bolts, check the fluids. Better yet, if there are Goblin owners around you get them to look it over, help you out with alignment. I can honestly say, every owner that I have met has been an upstanding person and would help someone out with their build.
I have many more thoughts, but these are really the important ones.
Goblin Get Together, 2/6/2020
On 2/6/2020, I hosted a get together at my house for all that wanted to attend. We had a solid turn out with a majority of the Houston region Goblin owners. In addition, Lonny and his wonderful wife came down from Red Oak. Semiofficial list follows (I am sorry if I missed you):
- Lonny
- Brenda (Lonny’s wife)
- JBINTX
- SACTX
- ROTTYS
- JOEBOB
- Sajeev (close friend, car enthusiast, neighbor, car blogger)
- Rick (closer friend, car enthusiast)
- Jim and Viv (father / stepmom)
- My wife, me, and 2 kids
- Plus, several others that stopped by
I think we had a great turnout due to the abnormally great Houston weather and the provided food
Wang-less
Mrs. Brett and Brenda Doyle - The two most understanding women in all of Houston on that day.
A big shout out to the Houston crew for coming by and letting my kids clime all over your Goblins!
What’s Next
As I talked about above, I am currently disassembling my Goblin to rebuild. The real question is, am I building to keep if for the long term or the short term. No matter what, I am rebuilding. The short-term vs long term decision is something that me and my family will decide together.
The reality is that DF and I have come to an agreement on various parts needed that I cannot turn down.
Hopefully, I will have an inventory in the next 6-8 weeks that I can post online and I can track down some parts.
The beauty of getting to build it again, is that I get to do things differently. I already have a high level list of changes that I am considering such as:
- Sliding and reclining seats
- Steel floor panels? I have a welder, and a plasma cutter.
- Move the heat exchanger to the drivers side rear above the fuel tank.
- Run the radiator hoses through the tunnel so that I can rivet to the lower side rails (debatable).
- Stereo?
- SACTX’s shifter!
- Wider tires, think Ross wide tires....
- LED headlights (have)
There might be others, I do not know.
I think that is enough for now. Ask all the question you want but please refrain from attacks on my mistakes.
Until next time.
Brett
). In hindsight, that was a bit dangerous. We don’t really have a local spot to test drive.
