[JC]

Too mnay little dumb things but fixing them has only ever really cost me time.

But the dumbest thing I did in the garage that nearly cost me a lot was when I fitted accelerator and brake pedal covers (the ones helds on with screws & metal tabs) to my AU2 Forte V8 auto. They were fine until I went to a track day at Wakefield Park. Coming off the back straight into the hairpin, I had just overtaken someone and it was time to step on the brakes. Step I did, STOP the car did NOT! I ended up going off sideways at around 130km/h, through the edge of the gravel trap and only stopped when I chucked the car into neutral and ripped the handbrake on. Of course this spun me 180 degrees, so I nearly backed into the wall - in the end, I missed the wall by the width of the car.

The cause of this? The screws holding the pedal cover on to the accelarator pedal embedded themselves in the carpet (obviously I was flat to the floor coming out of the kink!), causing the throttle to stick from INSIDE the car! Solution - angle grind those screws down!

To say I thought I was going to have a big stack would be an understatement - to walk away from it with only two sand blasted rims, and a few stones caught between the front tyre and the rim was miraculous.