On Sunday (the 3rd) I finished working on my Fiesta so I was able to drive it about again for the first time in a week. I only did some short trips, first to test the new brake lines and then to the shops with mum and out with a friend to get fireworks and a torque wrench. I enjoyed letting the revs rise to 3500rpm so I’d get the induction roar.

After dropping my friend off and unloading the fireworks I took to the country roads before nightfall. There’s a local road I know very well and I just caned it down there. Super fast and super aggressive as I had the road to myself and made full use of it. I was fun having a full on sprint but I wanted a longer run so I headed further out, towards the coast. After that I started looking for new roads and to slowly make my way home with the light fading. Driving through some road works I went past a junction and a police car shot out with it’s lights and sirens on. I thought I’d done something wrong but was relieved when I pulled over and it shot past and down the road.

So I’m driving down some new roads and it’s pretty dark now and I’m starting to get annoyed by the car in front. He’s only doing 50mph in a 60 (80.5Km/h in a 96.5Km/h) but I can’t overtake because I don’t know the road and I can’t see anything outside of our headlights. We head into a village and come to a junction where he goes one way and I go the other. I find myself on a nice road next to a field so I open it up. I’m thinking how beautiful the dark countryside is as I bomb it down the road and through a S bend. I head into a second S bend. I feel that I can take this one but I was wrong, I was going too fast and ran out of skill.

I take the left then the right but the rear is still going left. The back brakes out into a slide and the tyres screech across the road. I went off the road sideways and bounced a few times before coming to a stop in a ditch. I turn the engine off and put the hand brake on. The door won’t open so I turn the ignition back on long enough to open the window and jump out.

Update Written 12 January 2014

I wasn’t hurt in the crash just shaken up as it was my first. A passing pickup truck stopped and checked that I was okay. The lady talked to me to keep my calm and got my to phone my parents to tell them what had happened and where I was. The guy turned the pickup around and towed my car out of the ditch. He said “It won’t be pretty coming out” to which I replied “It wasn’t pretty going in.” The front bumper had been pulled off on on side so we remove it from the other and put it in the boot. I had my camera in the glove-box and for some reason I felt like I had to take pictures. Maybe it was just to keep me busy.

Mum sat in the car with me as I drove it the 8 miles (12.8Km) home and dad led the way in his car. The car felt twitchy over bumps and it wasn’t until I tried reversing it into the garage that we discoverd that the front wheels were pointing different directions.

To see my car build log and more crash pictures, visit the Kustom PCs Forum.