Panoz Engineer Nearly Dies

[EZcheese15]

Ok, this is a direct copy of an email I just got from a friend of mine:

-------Some of you may know that I am good friends with John Leverett, who is the chief engineer for Panoz Autodevelopment, makers of the Esperante and the Panoz Roadster. John, with his wife as passenger, was driving a company Esperante on a poor quality road and passing a semi on the left when the rear of the car apparently hydroplaned and fishtailed to the left. As John was even with the tractor's rear wheels when the incident began, the nose of the car slid under the trailer. Since the car is a convertible, the windshield came down on top of John's right hand, still at opposite lock in an effort to catch the spin. The top came down on their heads and they both received some cuts and bruises. The driver of the rig, seeing that he had just run over a car, pulled over and stopped and was trying to reach 911 on his cell phone. When John and Megan walked up to the tractor, stepped up and knocked on the window, they just about scared the poop out of the driver who was sure that any occupants of the car must be dead. They all waited in the cab for 20 minutes for the sheriff to show up, who then did not get out of his car at first as he also felt that this was an obvious fatality situation. They all had to wait 5 hours for wreckers to show up that could lift up the trailer while the Esperante was pulled out from underneath, so John started taking pictures of the scene out of sheer boredom. The final photo R>L: John, wife Megan and the truck driver. After spending 5 more hours at the hospital to get stitches, they decided that the best way to get back to Atlanta was to catch a plane the next morning.... The motorcycle accident that John refers to in his message happened when a Toyota Tacoma drifted across the center line in a hairpin turn and hit John head-on back in 1998. A Bell racing helmet saved his life back then, and maybe some of his own engineering skill saved his life this past Sunday.

Tim

[skydragoness]

Holy crap

What a freak accident. Seems as though the car hooked itself to the semi, in just right place and in the right location. I'm assuming they must've dropped their heads before the car slid under.

I'm curious as to what tires that Esperante was running. Were they dunlops? Because they suck in the rain, i've hydroplaned in them myself (hence, i don't have 'em)

[Mr1der]

good thing it wasn't an SUV:D