K Parlett Racing: Brake Failure at Carolina Motorsports Park

If you go wide open through the kink at the top of 5th gear about 140mph at Carolina Motorsports Park then you better be able to stop... well I couldnt, as you can see from the video above. The first time out with real track duty on the car started out amazing at the Turn One Track event. It was my first time out going full speed on a road course with the car since the build was completed. The classroom and instruction TurnOne supplied was absolutely awesome and before I knew it my slow laps in the morning turned into blistering laps in the afternoon. The car handled absolutely amazing and was on rails all day, it would do literally anything and everything I asked of it and never had me wanting more out of the car, and we are still on low boost for now and the power will be increased largely in the next coming weeks. With the car handling perfect I was able to hold the throttle wide open in spot that most either had to lift or brake at so by the time I was getting the line down better and better by the 40th lap of the day I was hitting 140mph going into the switchback of turn 11. But on the final session and on by far my fastest lap of the day the brakes pads exceeded there maximum operating temperature (wrong compound... oops) and they disintegrated instantly when the 6 piston Wilwoods applied pressure and the nice stiff brake pedal hit the floor and stayed there as the metal on metal tried to stop with no success. Realizing the brakes had gone and I had no means of stopping from the top of 5th gear i downshifted and held on for dear life and slowly turned it into the sandpit and was going so fast the car came to a stop at the completely opposite side of the pit and within a few feet of the tire barrier. Whew got lucky on that one! Getting new race compound pads and front rotors and back to CMP again on Friday the 2nd for some more seat time, and faster laps! Check out the wild video of the the brake failure!